Expansion Fleet - Avalon Archive

Because of the complexity of this debate it seems to be important that we differentiate between characters and members of the RPG.

In the real world we are all different. If we all had the same characteristics this world would not be what it is - positively as well as negatively. A world without any differences is not capable of development and means boredom.

For the RPG it should be the same. The differences between characters are of great importance for realism and credibility. And tension increases in proportion to realism and credibility.

I think one main problem of this RPG is the fact that there are many characters being played by less members.

I have myself been a member for five months now, but I only play three characters: the romulan Ambassador Tomek, the cardassian Admiral Madred and - of course - this one. And I'm not sure if I could handle well with much more. Before posting anything, I always think about the possible reactions on my behavior. I try not to post just to say something, but to give other characters a possibility to interact with me. If I had ten or more characters, I wouldn't know how to act in a responible manner with everyone of them...

I know that a RPG needs characters. But to me it seems more important how each character acts than how many (potential acting) characters there are. My proposal is to reduce the number of characters per member to increase the number of responsible and useful posts. I suggest the following:

1. For every ship, station and department no more than 1 character per member.

2. For every empire no more than 2 characters per member.

3. Altogether no more than 5 characters per member.

I also know that this is no answer to all the problems we have here, but I hope I was able to explain my point of view. If you think all this is totally useless, you maybe at least understand why I haven't registered for more than three characters.

Thanks for your patience.

(Edited by Thomas Stiegler at 4:37 pm on Oct. 3, 2002)

Personally I don't think we should, or CAN make a limit of characters.

I do understand Stiegler's reasoning too, and yes I do agree with it.  Imagine that only 3 or 4 important people (besides me and Winterspoon) leave the game.

If Strider leaves, then his characters:
1. John Casden
2. John Riker
3. Aaron Sisko
4. Thomas Riker
5. Sorik
6. Turok
7. Steve McCoy
8. Sloan
9. Cordell Walker
10. Jacques Clouseau
11. Luther Stickell
12. Ethan Hunt
13. Arthur Fonzarelli
14. Kurga
leave as well.

if Tomas Goransson leaves, then his characters:
1. Zack Mannion
2. Hirohito
3. Michael Gant
4. Tamok
5. Amarik
6. Rugal
7. Kodak
leave as well.
That means: 2 people have to leave for the RPG to have 20 characters less.

And then half the game is empty.

As you can see, for an RPG it is not so good that half the game depends on only so few people.

My arguments:
- a limit of characters cant be set, because as Strider points out, one can handle more than the other so its a personal thing
- every PERSON should have maximum ONE character on each ship or station, I agree
- forbidding to make more characters for every member is impossible, they sign up with another email address and for most people you won't even know for sure its them and you have no valid proof to base it on, and if it someone else after all, then we lose a member because of a false accusation.

So what I mean is:
YES we need more PEOPLE, and not just MORE CHARACTERS with the SAME people.
But we can't ask for existing characters to be killed off.

i agree and dissagree with this.
The corps does not have many menbers so to fill up things 1 player creates more charathers for that ship.

if i leave now i leave behind.

- Mikhail Arkov
- Doctor Gogol
- Geert de heer
- Goldar
- Hawkeye Pierce
- Leonid Pushkin
- Sobor
- The Torrans
- Trodin
- Zukovsky Ourumov
- Henry William Bishop
- Edmunt Blackadder
- Micheal J miles

but thats a risk if you limit charather build your going to find less people want to join.
we need to make a safetly net in chase people
leave but what your talking about is not a good plan

Yes I also agree, and for the characters I also have 7 characters or so, and I can handle it. I have the time and I am addicted to this RPG :biggrin:....and I might put it a bit hard but it makes me furious when they are always fighting because there is something wrong....

The Rivendell mission was going good, it was raining posts but then suddenly there was an argument and now people aren't posting as much...or even no more! WHY??

I was hoping that people had learnt from the earlier incident.(I DID)..but what I see is that people, who are members for a long while, are the ones who are fighting....if people want a good and fun board they have to give something to recieve...it can't always go like the way you want.
I also give and recieve and that's why I am visiting this RPG every day, and why it's addicitive to me

Hm, yes. Why not? But then someone must help me with the iconboard cuzz I have no knowledge of install it or anything.

oh montrell come to my office.. I'm sure I can find you plenty to do

Ok there have been problems:
- one not getting along with the other
- missions that die because they become a mess or because people dont post often enough
- some sections do well, others are dead
- ...

How can we handle these problems?

For example, what do you think is better? Many ships with small crews, or few ships with large crews?

Keep everything on this board? Or split up in more boards to keep it in better order?

How do we get more people to join this RPG?

How do we work out our differences and handle problems with people we dont get along with?

I hope all of you will participate on this topic...

Ahhhh, at last, someone interesting who has pointed one of the 2 main Problems of this RPG!
Yes = more members!
For what?
Yes = less characters!
Suggestion, a new member who desires to play ONE of your character can use your character....

Now, other thing....
We have ENOUGH Admirals, Vice-Admirals, Generals and Brigadiers in here. NO MORE!
Enough people has MUCH POWER in here.
Stop! Power corrupts unbalanced persons. We have had one sad example, this recent days, right?

Yes, there may indeed be some people who are able to control a mass of characters. But I wasn't only talking about the ability of controlling characters, but also of the quality and responibility of posts. And I think, even if some of you may be able to handle with 10 or more characters - that is also a question of power. A member with so many characters will automatically have much more power and influence on the RPG than a member with less characters - power that cannot be controlled. And that is maybe one part of some chaos that is around here, sometimes.

(Edited by Thomas Stiegler at 6:24 pm on Oct. 3, 2002)

I don't have problems with more than one character for a member, I just need more members creating characters... and spread them on different ships, different tasks...

nicely put.. u sure your not a true diplomat at heart?

100% approved!
Nothing to add.
Except there is only, for the moment, ONE Co of the Corp (me!) and ONE Xo (Geert).... It will be difficult to achive this goal, somewhere. But, when the Corp Members Number will increase, YAY!
*jumpi jumpa jumpo* © Sara
:biggrin:

Yo DO
When can I start!

Many ships, small crew.

One rpg.

Hmm....well, I agree and I also disagree. I can see both sides of the coin. There are people who can control a large number of characters...like me. So if a rule is made, I am not going to kill off a bunch of my characters to meet the 5 character limit.

I think that is one of the basic problems too at the moment.  Certain people used to post very often.  Now they don't/can't any more.  But because they posted often before, they got a high position such as admiral.

And now, to be honest, half of the admirals dont post as often as they should any more...  So in the very COMMAND things are already lacking...  at least it is the case for Starfleet, and I believe for the Romulan Fleet too.

In order to prove this, may I point out that none of the names I mentioned above, has posted even ONCE in this topic?

I would say this topic is quite important, and one that high-ranked officers of this RPG should certainly participate.  Yet they have probably not even noticed yet....

I post as often and as frequent as im needed or is required for me to reply to something.  Are w enow suggesting that we post for the sake of posting so we can keep up appearences that we are here and always active ?

one thing I have seen is that on some ships, the Skytoucher for example, we have two helmspeople, this makes it and I'm sure Valkico(sorry bout the spelling) agrees, quite difficult to do our jobs as we are always running into walls by the others posts.  I don't see any other way to fix this but have a single officer at a single post.  This is just my observations and suggestion.

But if you have many ships, with small crews..you risk the "low posting" at some forums....with the ships we have now, we are doing good....if we have filled one ship then go to the next one...

hi it's , me Boris, I say .... few ships with large crews ..... I think it's the best ...

(off ... sorry I'm drunken ... if I were not, I would say more)

I also agree, I had never noticed this problem...but when I heard about the member problem and low posting members I thought let's help by making more characters....but it's a good point...

Well, I think I follow that...except on the Corpship Enforcer. I have 2 there....but only 1 elsewhere.

Please don't call me "Stiegler". I would prefer "Counselor"... at least "Thomas". Thank you so much!

Perhaps those Admirals, Captains and also Commanders who don't post often should then be the first ones to be demoted or even to be deleted...

If not the admirality, who then should show exemplary behavior concerning posting often... !?

hm, not good.

If we want to talk about this RPG's problems, we will also have to talk about communication. The way we communicate to each other in here is of great significance for how the RPG is going to work.

We have at least the following possibilities of acting as a member:

· Using the messenger, the chat room or e-mail.
· Posting a reply in an off-game forum.
· Posting an 'off-message' in an in-game forum.

To act as one of our characters, we can:

· Post a reply or create a new topic in an in-game forum.

If you now compare these two lists, you will see that the only place, where we can be both member and character, is the in-game forum. Usually the in-game forum should be the place, where the characters (e.g. crew or other people on a ship or a starbase) talk to each other. But in addition we also have the possibility to post an 'off-message'.

Here are two examples where these off-messages would make sense, as there is important additional information given:

---- Example 1 ----
'Captain, this is all information we have about that curious crewmember...'

He handed the Captain a PADD.

OFF: http://www.phoenix-federation.com/cgi-bin....tiegler
---- End ----

---- Example 2 ----
'Let's beam down to the planet's surface, now.'

The Commander, the doctor and two security officers de-materialized.

OFF: Continued in the 'On the planet' forum.
---- End ----

But I'm not sure if this is a good example for 'off-messaging':

---- Example 3 ----
'Yes Captain, I will search for the lost warp core immediately.'

OFF: Member XYZ, you know I don't like you, you are a bad captain. Your orders are so stupid and you always destroy the whole mission. I'm going to inform Vorak about this.
---- END ----

I think, this is a perfect example for misusing off-messages, because it is nothing more than provocation and unfriendliness. The member in this example has a problem with another member. But wouldn't it be better not to have it out in a mission forum, where all other (crew) members have to suffer from it... (and get involved in this dispute)? If you mislike anyone so much that you really need to tell him, well - go, write a topic in the off-game forum, send him a message, join the chat... do anything to clear it, but do not destroy missions as a result of your irritating quarrels!

Instead of endless discussions about who is stupid and who is not, perhaps just tolerate or better accept that we, the members of this RPG like all people all over the world, are different. Sometimes it may be hard to understand somebody's point of view, but even if we cannot accept someone's opinion, we must at least tolerate it.

And... one further suggestion:

If you have learned to tolerate other members, you will also be able to tolerate differences between characters. You don't like the way your ship's captain gives orders? Well, don't offend the other one as a member, but transfer your aggressions to your character: Tell him (the captain) that you (e.g. his first officer) have a problem with his orders - but always keep being constructive! I guess, we will all gain a lot from a ship's crew that is more than just a crowd of characters only giving their blessing to everything.

(Edited by Thomas Stiegler at 11:07 am on Oct. 4, 2002)

BTW I am also speaking with my other characters...also the ones in "high places"

Okay, okay, guys, there is NOW something I wanna expose in here. And someone *glances to Vorak* will certainly say : "Ah! At last!" Pfffff!
If I had time enough to do what I must do for Boards and The Corp Site, as when I was on vacations, mwell, okay. But, I have returned to work................. Awaking every day at 05:00 and finishing job after 12:15 (14:00 on Saturday) is tiring enough, you don't think so?

Anyway..... The Webring Idea (Vorak, shhhhhhhhhh!)

Okay, I have analysed the architecture of our RPG.
There are 3 main Fleets :
1 StarFleet
2 Cardassians
3 The Corporation
I could count the Romulans but it seems as the Romulans are a bit, erm, sleepy.
As far as I have understood, there will be also a Shadow Fleet. So, if you follow me well, there will be 4 Fleets. Not only that but I suspect there will be more in the future of the RPG (if you guys have grown enough to stay gentlemen and stop your childish fight games -should I shut my big mouth, sometimes?- :wink: ).

So my idea is to make an Expansion Webring.
And, as the Expansion Site was the First Site to be originally built, the Expansion Site could become the Expansion Portal between all the Fleets INSIDE this Webring.
The Voting Page of the Expansion could become the Expansion Voting Page for every Fleet in the Expansion RPG. Every Fleet Site Webmaster will have to update his/her Fleet Site links, however. And invite his/her FleetMembers to V O T E frequently. So that each Fleet Site could concentrate updating sessions on each Fleet News and Pages Updating. What for? To maintain the Credibility of Each Site/Fleet.

News for Each Fleet can be achieved by the WebMaster (Fleet Admiral, General, Leader or whatever that could be) DIRECTLY in a Special Forum of the Fleet Board. I want to do that in the Corporation HQ Board and it's the best it could be if we don't want to waste our time in updating ONLINE all the informations. The easy way to do so is to have Reporters that will do the Job for us. When a mission of a Fleet is achieved in the Expansion Forum, a Reporter of this Fleet will have to copy/paste the main posts of this Mission on the HQ Fleet News Forum and build that way one article about this Mission. And this will be easily read by a permanent link on the Fleet Site.
Fleet Admirals, Fleet Generals and Fleet Leaders have enough job to do about watching their Own Board, their own Site and the Expansion Board to waste their time by building articles and so on and so forth and ad vitam eaternam et ad nauseam. May I remind you that the number of the Missions will increase in proportion of the number of the Fleets, Ships/Bases and FleetMembers? How many characters do you have, personnally?

Admiral Vorak wants to create a Board for StarFleet (Avalon) and the Expansion Board we are currently using will be the Board where all the Fleets will post their missions. This idea has my full support because I have already started this by creating the Corporation HQ Board and all of the CorpShips are playing in the Expansion Board in the "Nebula and its Borders" Forum. That way, the Expansion Forum will not grow too much (we need room for the Expansion!), we will be able to continue posting as many as we want and I can have Secret Reunions with my worthy CIB Senior .So you can imagine how enthousiastic I am for this project. :biggrin: (BTW, I have more emoticons, on my Board. can't you grab them to add these to this one? Pffff!)

Assuming I don't like this Lcars Interface for the Expansion Site, because of its 1024 resolution and Full Window Mode process, this Interface is perfect for a WebRing. And specially for the Portal.
If this Portal could be set up, the credibility of the Expansion RPG and Sites would be easier to reach. One Main Site for the Expansion Webring and Sites for Fleets linked to this Webring. Of course, to have more credibility, Particular Boards for Each Fleet Site. What for?, you could ask me. Reality and credibility. And I give you one example for you to understand :
If you want to REALLY visit The Corporation, you "warp" to the Corporation Board. If we do everything on the Expansion Board, it is not credible. Because everyone can "warp" to a forum, post in this Forum and be visiting an other forum in the same time. You have noticed? Two posts at the same time! The TimeLine is not respected. This is NOT credible. In the reality, there are DISTANCES between Stations and Ships; and even more between one Fleet and an other one.

If you want to respect the Star Trek Spirit, and the Credibility INSIDE this Spirit (do Star Trek Movies Directors respect the AstroPhysics and Science Knowledge in their Movies? Answer => YES!), this Webring is important. When Ships are moving to an other location in Space, they are REALLY moving. When someone is in one Station, this someone IS NOT on an other station (except Q, alas!). So, if you want only play a RPG like if it was a PC Game, it's your affair not mine.

What do you think of that?

As Admiral I agree...I could use the work. Sometimes I am to lazy but with the new arrangement it would be old working again :biggrin:

The reason why ships have two helm officers is because most other stations do as well.  Thing is, helm is quite an important job because they get the ship moving, and sometimes when a helm officer doesnt post, the ship gets stuck.

But I may have a solution to this problem:
as I am inspired by the novels of "Stargazer" about Picard's first command, that ship had in fact two helm officers, but yet their duties were not entirely the same since they always worked both on the bridge at the same time.
1 is HELM officer
1 is NAVIGATION officer
And the one needs the other.

What do you think?

Excellente...

I belive you didnt get an answer because you reported into the wrong place the first 2 times thats all Nothing to Worry about Anyways if you need any further help getting around the forums you can send me a PM or since you're a member of StarPhoenix now you can post any questions in my office located in starphoenix in the same forum where you reported for dutie

(Edited by Katie Marou at 1:23 am on May 14, 2003)

Exactly. One ship with all crew. Then when it comes more persons, we simply add anothing ship. It is so I have decided to do.

And if it isn't possible to limit the number of characters per member, then you must at least delete those characters that don't post frequently. And "frequently" cannot mean once a month, but at least once a week. And of course characters in higher and leading positions (such as captains...) should post much more than once a week.

but Thomas, there are not many Admirals, Captains and also Commanders, who don't post often, I think - I dunno. have to ask vorak ....

Then we'll have to give the admirals some more work to do

i agree totaly with this plan.
as XO of the corps and Chief of the CIB i give this plan my total suport!

I think that is a good idea..

i read the RGISTER and it did not help. it has take in 4 day to get a post and i have been to move 3 time be for i get a post  

1 How do you recruit Members? You have contacts with other Star Trek Fans? You are voting for your sites?
2 Do you build StoryLines for your Ships and Bases? (I have one General StoryLine for the Corporation and, with Geert, we are preparing more StoryLines for some Ships and Deska)
3 Intrusion in your HeadQuarters? Open a Board (like I did for the Corporation, have only one XO with you as CO) and play on the Expansion Board.
4 What about your site? Are there informations about what you are doing in this Expansion Sector?
5 Are you really interested in the RPG to give it a CREDIBLE dimension and a HUMAN dimension?

If you do that, I'm wondering WHY this RPG is failing...
And THAT is a SARCASM.

And let me add one thing:

If I don't like someone in real life, you will avoid him. But perhaps you are not able to avoid him, because you must work together with him. Then you have to try to accept him and his mistakes. If that is not possible, one of you will have to leave...

For the RPG: If you don't like one member you maybe cannot work together with him on one ship or station. But if you have no chance to find a ship, where there is no of this member's characters', because this member has so many characters... If you really don't like anybody, but you have no possibility to avoid him, because there is one of his characters' everywhere you go - don't you think that may be irritating?

That is where I see another problem. Perhaps we must accept that some people in here cannot work together. And we must give them the chance to work as independently from each other as possible.

Looks like it...

People of the admiralty or any CO status, of Starfleet that post insufficient:

Vice-Admiral Julian
Senior Admiral Zach T Schmidt
Rear Admiral Geordi
Captain Grady O'Scott
Commander Zach Schmidt

In the case of Julian, he has informed me about computer problems so that he couldnt be online as often any more, which is not his fault.
As of the other characters, they simply have started to post less often without letting us know any reason. At least, I believe they post insufficiently according to their rank.

As CO of Shadow Fleet, I concur.

Ok i'll "make it so"

Well when you register from the main site, you will have the help you need. When you register there you will be taken through a serie of steps so you know in what kind of fleet you will be in. Also at the end it states that you have to report to the main office of that Board/Division. When you have more suggestions please tell them, we like to know were we can improve our RPG

I say more ships with smaller crews for the following reason. If you have a ship where say 2 or 3 people have multiple characters to crew the ship, then it wont be to much of a lose if they cant post for a while...and if they can, you have a few active missions.

I think that if we tell people to make only one character, for example; this is the result:

they make a character once more when they want, but with another email address, or claim it to be a friend using their comp for example

If we ALLOW them to make other characters, this happens:

they will admit it is them as well, so we will KNOW it, and if we KNOW it, we can better CONTROL it, and that way we can do our best to put every of their chars on another ship. If we dont know (for sure) they're the same person, we cant fully control it and put them on different ships, you see?

There is another reason for my suggestion...many ships and small crew. That way people that can't get along well have less contact with each other. Like for example de Heer has other characters in starfleet and so does Rugal. Many ships and small crew would make it less likely for them to have to work together on the same ship. Hence, they could better avoid each other. See what I am getting at?

Tolerence is the answer to lifes problems.

I have people in my area at work that I absolutly dislike with a passion.  Personality conflicts everywhere.

Worst luck is she's my supervisor so yes she lords it over me.  But I tolerate her for the harmony of others.  To others it seems we work well togather because we both endure it not because we like it.

Thats something several of us here and me included need to learn and understand.

This idea has my full support, and in fact, it only explains in different words the exact same thing I am building in my mind.
Only, I have been building the idea in a practical way already, as in... how will we arrange this whole webring system, which boards for which forums.

I would say it like this:
There will be DIVISIONS.

To begin, I think it would be good to see Expansion in TWO IMPORTANT PARTS:
1. Starfleet
2. Corporation
(after all, that is the main idea we have this RPG built for)

So that means: 2 mean HQ boards.
HQ Board 1: Station Avalon, mission planning, division HQ's, reports, subspace communications, databases, main offices, all departments, of Starfleet...
HQ Board 2: the same but for the Corporation...

THEN, we make DIVISIONS.
For example, one division exists of 3 ships (or 2 ships and 1 station).  They have their own board with all the necessary forums (which can be more extended because it will be ANOTHER board, and that also makes everything more organized than it is now).
That way, we could for example, have the USS SKytoucher, USS Evolution and USS Rivendell as ONE DIVISION.
Section 31/Intel/FSS could be ANOTHER DIVISION
The Cardassians would be a DIFFERENT DIVISION.

And the Corporation could do so on their part.

As for the divisions, the captains will need to make reports to their CO's about their missions, findings and so on.  Every division has an ADMIRAL assigned, that has to make sure that everything inside this division runs well.  THIS ADMIRAL deals with the problems such as disputes and so on, and brings it to certain departments on the HQ BOARD when necessary, and goes to HIS CO if he can't take care of it himself.
Also, this DIVISION CO ADMIRAL will make a GENERAL REPORT about his WHOLE division, and sends this report to the HQ board, where the higher admirals will look into it.

Why?
Problem 1 that is solved: the admirals have more to do than now, and they will actually get a "real responsibility".  For example: a report that is due on tuesday, is due on tuesday and no day later!
Problem 2 solved: chain of command.  You go to your OWN CO with a problem first, not directly to the Fleet Admiral or Senior Major just to request shoreleave for a day.
Problem 3 solved: there will be more communication between admirals, and the officers under their divisions as well, and they will be important links between HQ and DIVISION, and also, there will be STANDARD PROCEDURES and REGULATIONS appliccable to EVERYONE to prevent any kind of disputes

An EXTRA role for S31/FSS/Intel, and if Winterspoon decides for the Corporation the same then also for the CIB, would be to do random checks on the way a division is being run.  For example, by infiltrating undercover and checking if the admiral is doing his job CORRECTLY, if his division is following the RULES and REGULATIONS as well as the procedures, or if rules are being broken and things are being kept secret from HQ.

Each division brings their own fleet-news in the way they wish so themselves, although its something i need to work out in my mind still.

This way, more "divisions" can be added on an easier base... for example, if Shadowfleet wants to LINK with us, Shadowfleet can become a DIVISION.

There are more parts to this plan that need to be worked out practically, but at least you know the main idea now.

I also totally agree...everybody would have plenty of work!! and hopefully no more fights

to all. what you are saying if good  but if you have some shift or blocks of time people can be on Shift it will help and a person to help new people for a min or 2. I have ben hear 4 day no person has help or anying.:hithead: just got a rank. so i thank people wood like if it some a littil more organize:agree1:. so help