Things That All Ongoing Worlds Members Should Know Part 3

Okay, so this is my third draft for this post that I ultimately want to put up on the blog. I have 10 points, but if anyone has other thoughts about things to include, I can merge or subtract some of these points. If you guys disagree with any of these points, have better ideas for point titles, have thoughts about how I could order or format these points, or thoughts on how I could condense the point descriptions, I would love your input. As I said in the first post, I will credit those of you who have helped me write this, which, so far, has been LargeHobbit, Redsword7, White Caribou, and Esimed.
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The Ongoing Worlds Community is about as open as you get. Anybody who can access the internet who understands English can join. There are no rules nor protocols listed anywhere, except in the game information sections and descriptions of some of the games on the site, and those vary per game. Yet despite that, really become a comfortable member of the Ongoing Worlds Community and getting the most out of the Ongoing Worlds experience is not quite as cut-and-dry as it may appear at first. Ongoing Worlds offers a fair number of tools whose value and utility may not immediately be recognizable, and the Ongoing Worlds Community itself has a unique microculture, with a lot of our values and beliefs not being readily apparent either.

In an attempt to help newcomers and veterans better understand the tools at our disposable, how we use those tools, and understand the beliefs of the Ongoing Worlds Community, I have worked with the people of the Ongoing Worlds Community Platform to put together a list of ten things that we would like everyone to know and understand about Ongoing Worlds. Many of these are lessons that I have learned through making mistakes, resulting in hurt feelings for me or those that I have interacted with. Hopefully by sharing this information, others can learn what I have learned less painfully than I did.

1. Members are a precious resource, so don't take them for granted. There is a fairly small pool of writers that are active on Ongoing Worlds at any time. Given that this is the case, game designers need to consider the following:
• How many members is the game designed to work with? A lot or a few? If a lot, what is your plan for drawing members and retaining them? The Ongoing Worlds Community Platform is a free advertising medium for all Ongoing Worlds members who join the game (you probably will not get turned down as a member unless you are an obvious spambot). The OW Community Platform is also a great place to propose game concepts and build hype for your game before you launch it.
• How many other active games on Ongoing Worlds are thematically similar to the game you want to create? What other games have the same target audiences as the one you are designing? When you are making a game, you are competing with other active games for members. The more games of a similar style and theme you are competing with, the less likely your game is to draw a substantial amount of highly active players.
• With less than thirty members active in the average month, the likelihood of encountering more than six people with very similar philosophies and styles to you is rare. If you want more people to join your game, you may want to have less steep joining requirements.
• Most of the people that regularly visit Ongoing Worlds are already involved in a comfortable amount of games, therefore, it is unreasonable to expect a bunch of people to join a new game the day it is created unless you have built hype for said game. Be patient, and eventually, some of those thirty people will try your game out if it is worth joining.

2. Email is Ongoing Worlds' method for Private Messaging. You can find the email address of any given member by clicking the links to their profile page. Email communication is extremely valuable here on Ongoing Worlds, as it is the primary means through which different OW members can discuss things that don't need to be publically displayed for everyone to see. The Ongoing Worlds experience is not meant to be enjoyed alone, and email is the primary means of bridging the physical distance between you and other OW members. Keep in mind that you cannot see another member's email address until you are an accepted member of a game that they are also in. A quick way to be able to see the email addresses of a lot of other members is to join the Ongoing Worlds Community Platform.

Also, because email is so important as a means of communication on Ongoing Worlds, please remember to check the email address you have listed on your Ongoing Worlds profile frequently. Other members often have things they would like to discuss with you, especially if you are a moderator of a game, and they usually don't like having to wait a long time for their inquiries to get a response.

3. The game information page is a valuable tool for communicating information that you would like players and prospective players to know that does not need to be part of your sales pitch (which is one of the primary purposes of the game description). This page can be found on the pull-down menu next to the game title.

If you are a member looking to join a game, it is a good idea to read the game information section of any games that you are interested in.

4. Disqus is a helpful tool too. You can make comments on posts that have the "This is an OOC Post" checkbox checked. The comments section will be underneath the body of the post. The easiest way to post a comment is to make a Disqus account, but you can also sign in as a guest and use a phony email if you are internet-paranoid or just don't feel like dealing with yet another account.

Disqus is an effective tool for having discussions that you want other members to be able to see in a format that doesn't clog a game up with an excessive amount of OOC posts.

5. Do all of the things that appear on the "things to do list" as soon as possible when you are creating a new game. If you aren't sure how to do something, you can search the Ongoing Worlds Blog for answers or join the OW Community Platform and ask your questions there.

6. Flesh out your posts, characters, and game descriptions. Most writers on Ongoing Worlds like to see posts that are at least three paragraphs in length and appear to have been reread for spelling and grammar mistakes. If you are struggling to add length to your post, think of the five Ws: Who, What, Where, When, and Why (I also like to add How when applicable), to explore details such as:
• Who is involved in the events in your post?
• What are they doing and saying?
• What is your character thinking about what is happening?
• What other objects and places are present near the action?
• Where are the events described in your post occurring?
• Where are the people, places, and objects present in your post relative to one another?
• When are the events described in your post occurring?
• Why is your character doing what they are doing and saying what they are saying?
• Why might other characters be doing what they are doing and saying what they are saying?
• How is your character able to do what it is they are doing?

If you can answer most of these questions in your posts, readers will have a much clearer idea of what you are trying to describe with your posts. Remember, other members cannot read your mind, so unless you explicitly state a detail, you should not expect other members to know to be aware of that detail.

7. Starting a successful game is tough, especially if you are new to Ongoing Worlds or have been away for a long time. On top of not really having a comfortable feel for the what is going on and what kind of people are currently active, you also likely won't have comfortable relations with any of the other Ongoing Worlds members. Often, getting a game off the ground comes down to who you know just as much as whether or not the idea for the game is appealing. You may get lucky and have a few members join your game after creating a new game, but if you find yourself struggling to recruit people, you may want to try to do some networking by joining other games.

Also, if you are a new member, and an Ongoing Worlds veteran joins your game, you may want to pick their brain for advice on how to improve the presentation of your game, or just ask them for help figuring out the plethora of features and tools that Ongoing Worlds offers.

8. Moderating a game is a responsibility that game creators and co-moderators need to take seriously. Once people join a game, it is the duty of the moderator(s) to try to enable their players to have fun. Effectively moderating a game requires a lot of time and effort, so if you don't have a ton of time or don't quite know what you need to be doing to keep your game going, feel free to ask your player base and/or the Ongoing Worlds Community for help or support.

Appointing a trusted member to be a co-moderator is a great way to split the moderational load of your game. Just make sure that you communicate to your co-mod what it is you would like them to do and what kinds of things you would prefer to take care of yourself.

In the event that you have created a game that other members have joined but you find that you are not enjoying it or don't have a sufficient amount of time to dedicate to your game, then you really need to weigh your priorities. Real life is obviously more important than anything we do on Ongoing Worlds, and we're here to have fun, not needlessly stress ourselves out, but again, as a moderator, you owe it to your players to enable them to have fun with your's and their ideas. If you can't or don't want to dedicate the time and energy needed to enable your game to prosper, then you should promote someone else to be a moderator. A large number of games die off on Ongoing Worlds because the creator and sole moderator of a game does not show up enough to be effective. Remember, as the sole moderator you are the only person who can accept new characters and members into your game. Failing to take time to look at new characters and members is a sure-fire way to kill off your game. If you can't make time to check Ongoing Worlds regularly, you should make someone who does regularly check Ongoing Worlds a co-mod.

If you have gotten to the point that you just don't want to continue a game that you are a moderator of, you do not have to stay. If you won't spend the time you need to in order to make your game successful, and the time you do spend is more agonizing than it is enjoyable, you really should consider either leaving the game or closing it. If you are planning on doing either of these, communicate this desire to your members ahead of time. If you want to close the game, please, please, PLEASE ask your members if they would be okay with the game getting closed before you do anything, and give them sufficient time to respond. If they want to continue, promote someone to be your replacement, and then you can unsubscribe from the game. If your desire was just to leave the game in the first place, you can skip straight to that last step.

9. Respect the style and setting of the game. Most games on Ongoing Worlds try to immerse you into the world of their game and story that is being told. Maintaining this immersion makes the game a much more enjoyable experience and really helps participants appreciate the setting and characters within it. As such, when making characters, do your best to make as much about your character compatible with the setting of the game as you can. So if the theme of the game is that the characters are seriously flawed and morally corrupt, don't make your character a saint that can do no wrong. Also, try to pick a character image for your character that stylistically is similar to the portraits used by other characters in the game.

This is more applicable to joining games, as you are already ideally doing this if you have created a game. If you are the creator or moderator of a game aiming to be immersive, feel free to assertively discuss your concerns with people who submit characters that fail to follow the theme or style that you want. If you want additional members, it is advisable to try to diplomatically come to an agreement with the member submitting the contentious character instead of flatly rejecting the character. Often, when someone submits a character that isn't in line with the theme of the game, it is because they don't have a comfortable grasp of what the theme and style of the game is. As such, when an issue like this occurs, the solution may involve diagnosing what the character creator is confused about, then explaining your expectations to that member. If necessary, you may want to then adjust the game description or game information page of your game in order to help other prospective members avoid the pitfall tha caused said member to create a thematically jarring character.

10. Most games are collaborative writing projects, which means that everyone is on the same team. The purpose of Ongoing Worlds is to have fun, and in most games, this is done by writing stories together. Thus, games that you participate in will run more smoothly and ultimately be more enjoyable when you and your colleagues utilize effective teamwork. This means respecting each other's boundaries, and characters, diplomatically communicating with each other, and not tying down other peoples characters by failing to promptly follow through with commitments that you make. Also, try to understand what other people want to accomplish with their characters and try to balance that with what you want to accomplish with your character. Don't become so focused on making your character shine that you make other characters irrelevant by solving every issue yourself.