Should I stay to the original as much as possible, or should I change some of the systems?

I'm asking this because I really would like to know if our current members are perfectly happy with our system. I don't mean the inactivity, we're all disappointed in that. XD What I mean is the class system, class selection, spells and skills, the level system, learning skills from the level system, possibly some shop selections, some little things here and there, and so on.

Of course, there are some things that will remain untouched, like the history and and world geography for instance, unless Derhlith feels the need to change them, then he'll do that himself. ^_^;; I'm also thinking about just keeping our current classes and altering them and/or adding new ones depending on how you guys and gals vote. :D

And yes, Derhlith has given me permission to change and add stuffs...or at least, I think he did...I'd have to ask him again just to make sure. XD

So, to clarify:

Basically I'll only add things and restrain myself as much as possible. I won't even touch the things that's here right now except a thing or two...really! :unsure:

Aside from the history, geography and possibly shops, things will change. I will still restrain myself somewhat, but quite simply, things will change. More specifically, the classes and skills. On the other stuff, I'll probably need help with. :P

You don't care, as long as the site somehow gets back up. That's it.

You may or may not post your reasons. It's up to you, though, I'd prefer you do so I know where your coming from. But again, up to you guys. Also, suggestions, questions, and comments are all welcome. So feel free to make a voice. ^_^

Always was up for change. It's good someone is willing to take ownership. Just don't mess with my char *fake glare*. It'll be good to see things change.

Like I told you, Crest: go for it.

Though I thought of one thing while reading over the post: If you plan on changing the skills/level system around, I'd ask that you refrain from using our setup for the other forum. I'd really like to see that one through (hopefully this summer if not sooner) and get that up and running: something totally unique, as it were.

Other than not using that, it's fair game. =)

Oh yeah, if you have questions about the ACP or MCP (Admin Control Panel or Mod Control Panel) lemme know. I know you've never really had access to them before, so it might be a bit confusing and/or overwhelming. ^_^

*Sigh* Looks like this is all of the responses I'm going to get, so I'll probably begin soon on the assumption that choice 2 has majority vote.

Here is a vague outline of what I'm going to do and a brief description of why:

Classes and Skills - I feel this is my strongest area and would probably be best to start here because of it. Also, it's kind of a way of self-persuasion, encouraging myself to work on this more. ^^;; And don't worry, Derhlith, I'll stay away from our other system as requested. ^_^

Weaponry and Armory - There's just some things that're bugging the heck out of me in here. I'll probably be adding some new choices, as well as altering others. I'll probably add a pole-arm section as well, seeing how we're missing one. :lol:

P. Skills - Bahahaha! The power is mine, so now I can make this however I want! Nah, just kidding. Now that I can finally see from the admins eyes instead of imagining it, it really does all make sense. So, overall, I'll probably just add more to our current P. Skill list, change the descriptions of some, add and/or remove restrictions to others. I'm also playing with an idea that'll let players have one more P. Skill (probably from the list) than they can currently, but I'm not sure if I want to go ahead with it or not. We'll see. ^_^

There are probably some more stuffs, but these are the ones off the top of my head. Also, if you have any questions, concerns, idea's, or feel you can contribute in some way, please feel free to pm or email me. Or, just post here. Sorry, no IM. -_- Long story short, I eventually got sick of everything about it. I know it has it's pro's, but from my own experiences, there are a lot more con's than there are pro's. <_<

Alright, that's all for now, have fun. ^_^

If ya need help, count me in. I'm ready and willing.

Wow. I was actually speaking with Cole/Alkioth the other day about this. I had came up with a few ideas I was about to put forth, but seeing as you've came up with a few, maybe yours shall work. But i'd like to give a bit of thought.

If im not mistaken, back when I was asking about Invisionfree and what not, someone told me that DI hadn't been placed in the RPG section. I may be wrong, but if im correct in remembering someone telling me that, it may be the key as to why we never had many members, thus we'd might want to send the forum over to the RPG section for a more possible number of people. If im wrong with my memory, then you have all the right to pimp smack this Drow. <<-

And if you need any help, dont be afraid to ask. Though im still a bit of an amateur when it comes to Admin skills, since I was too busy trying to find advertising sites to actually really look around on this site itself. So contact me if you need anything, Im usually on WoW anyways.. It reminds me of DI. XD

Whoa, hey. Thought you guys disappeared. ^_^;; I basically wanted to continue the move on this since the returning silence seemed to be bugging one of our members. *coughcough* Now for my responses:

Yay! Idea's. I'm up for another view, which was what I was encouraging the entire time. XD I was about to go ahead and start with the classes/skills, but seing how you were actually working on it silently, I don't want to push you off or anything like that. ^_^;; So, please send me your idea's, and I shall send you mine. And again, sorry, no IM. -_- ...Unless it's WoW, then that's something else. XD

As for the placing of this forum, that's true, and yet, it's not. It IS under the RPG section, but then there's the subsections which are:

RPG's (Yes, an RPG subsection in the RPG general section)
Commercial
Fantasy/Medievil

Then the rest are fan-stuffs, like Final Fantasy and Harry Potter and the rest of those cult things.
Dark Isles is in the Fantasy/Medievil section. So again, that's both true, and false. And for that, the drow gets a partial smack. ^_^

Hmm...well, in my opinion, the system wasn't really that complex. In the beginning, you choose a class and race (which other fantasy RP forums do), choose an element (which currently isn't very significant), then make your character's history and appearance (which again, other RP forums do). Then, after that, they quest for levels and money, which allows them to learn more skills and buy more stuffs...if they wanted to. ^_^

Personally, I think Dark Isles died for 4 main reasons:
1st: Registering - Now, I agree that if a person wants to join, they must first show that they have a pretty decent grasp of the english language. But the standard for passing was simply too high too early. Although many of the people were just simply inactive, some people seemed to just got frusterated with the expectations and left after their first failure. Other's, their sixteenth failure, with (I think) a decent 3 paragraph history.

2nd: Starting Locations - Now, this makes sense and all, but the problem with it was that there were some people who couldn't RP because they were all alone on a continent. Less people to interact with, less RPing to do, less fun, and eventually, overall quitting.

3rd: No Real Personalization - Okay, again, the skills are neat an all, and I agree with the level system, but it's just one line of skills. Aside from personality and history, everyone who becomes a knight has the same skills as the next knight, mage to mage, ranger to ranger, etc. The only skill uniqueness came from the P.SKills (which greatly helped I think) but I felt that there was only so many things you can do per class.

4th: BLAH! - There is a fourth reason, but I won't say it for it will probably offend some people. ^^;;

As for ways to "dumb down" the system...I'm not sure if I have the right idea or not. If you mean to make it easier to understand, sure. That's not exactly my forte, but it most likely is for someone else here. ^_^ If you mean changing some of the things around so that it's just easier that'll be kinda hard, because there are pro's and con's to everything. So for instance, we could completely remove all the skills for the classes so that new people don't have to worry about what's right or wrong, but then we might have level 2 mages or clerics going around removing mountains. XD
Otherwise, if I've completely missed your meaning, please elaborate and feel free to smack me along with the drow. :lol:

RAWR!! I've ranted... -_-

*Smacked. Grimaces, shaking his fist in temper.* Friggin'.. Blind.. Not so blind.. Mage.. Thing.. >___<-

Okay, with the partial smack done, I forgot to elaborate on some details I had running through my mind.

Since the site does need a somewhat overhaul for revival, and to help answer your personalization system to attract people..

Well. We'll have mods, and admins correct? We could erase the P. Skills, and just keep the basic. Every level, or every other level, they can request a detailed description of a skill they'd like. We could arrange it so that if a mod or admin feels it isnt GM-ish, it could be accepted.. 'cause well, that's what mods and admins should do? And if not.. Then *thumbs down* I dont mind beheading.. jk.

I also think we should possibly branch out the classes/races a tad, to give even further uniqueness. I mean, we have quite a few of each.. But well, just not enough, In my opinion. We could arrange some type of meeting to go over this of course, and give our ideas as to new, fresh races and classes.

And before I let it slip away, we could possibly find someone to help with some art for banner work, to make the site more original. No offense to Nick, when he and Cole and whoever else started the site, it was a nice touch.. But now.. eh, not so nice. Lol. Aragorn is just too easy to spot. *Insert me going to Mage and asking for some of his nifty artwork here?* XD But I do like the black with gold trimmed layout.. Nice touch. It is Dark Isles, afterall.

Now, I know my ideas might be a bit of a strain on Admins and Mods, if you were all to agree. But we have responsibilities that we all should know, and accept without hesitation if we were to run a very nice RP forum.

PS: Im also working on advertising.. Damnit.


----- Elither Daegovad.

Now for my idea's. ^_^

As I've told you before, but putting it up for all to see, I was thinking of something like branching themed skills. Something like the first few skills for the ranger, where you get two choices, one for the bow, the other for the sword, and you either take one OR the other. Can't have both (which you can eventually, but I'm thinking we leave that part out. ^_^). All physical classes would have something like that. For the magical classes, this system doesn't quite work with them too well because what themes would they follow? Mages have every element as a choice (which would be kinda cool since then, if people wanted to, they could have elemental specialty mages but I feel it would give them an unfair advantage of having 7 themes while everything else has 2-3. Though that's just my opinion ^^;;). And Druids control their natural surroundings (1-2 themes?). As for Clerics, it might work, having both offensive and defensive spells but overall holy element.

So what I had in mind was that for the physical classes, they follow the 2-3 theme style, while the magical classes follow a more strict style like what's going on. Then, when they reach the advanced classes (which I still need to get from Derhlith >_<), their themes spread out massively, while the physical classes stick with the 2-3 theme system.

Then there are the P.Skills. I had a a bunch of idea's to add to the list, but I can't remember any of them now. >_< I really need to start writing some of these things down. XD

As for the idea I've been playing around with (that I mentioned earlier), I was thinking about letting people start out with a P.Skill from the list. That way, they can start out a bit more unique. They'll still have to go through the whole approval thing, but the idea is that they get one at level 1, then level 15 and the rest the way we've had it.

I also kinda wanted to add some more to the item shops. Just seemed kinda small that's all, and during the time WE RPed, nobody really used them.

Alrighty, some of my idea's put in a little more detail (kinda feel like I'm spoiling the surprise posting here or something like that >_<). Now to respond off of your stuffs. :D

Hmm...that sounds like it could work very well. Though I personally like our current level system where you start out with pretty weak skills, and as your levels increase, so does the coolness of the skills, but I like the idea. However, I'm a bit worried with that still, because people can still receive an above-average power skills as their first choice, and can completely own things in their first few quests. Also, with a system like that, I think people will tend to go after the customized bigger and flashier skills rather then the smaller skills that would probably become basic knowledge for them if they hadn't skipped it. And there's nothing really stopping the physical classes (ex. knights) from taking on some nifty spells, and vice-versa, nothing stopping a magical class (ex. cleric) from learning some nifty physical skills, unless we put up some rules or something like that, but I think that'd make things seem too strict. And we'll probably have to designate a admin/mod for "okaying" job specifically later on when/if things start picking up again.

...Or maybe I'm just too skeptical about the nature of humans and should put more trust in them. ^^;;

Anyways, I kinda like the idea, but if we decide to implement it, it should be discussed some more first...in my opinion. ^_^;;

I, too, would like to do this. But I think races are kinda out of the question (except for maybe mixed races), since that too would require changing the history. Or if not, an explaination on why they haven't taken part in the first 2 demon wars as well as why nobody's ever mentioned them before. If you can get those things out of the way, then sure! :D

As for classes, again, I would like to do this too, but I was thinking about continuing on with Derhlith's work on Advanced Classes, and if those get added, choices would increase dramatically. Especially since we have already a good number of them. ^_^ *Counts 'em up* Okay...11 classes, 2 of them incomplete, and it seems like a dwarf magic class was in the works, so a total of 12 classes, if we count the dwarf magic user. If not, then 11 classes. XD

Hmm...but I guess the class selection might be lower than that, seeing how certain classes can only be obtained if your "this" race specifically, or something like that. So we might be able to add in a couple of classes or something like that if we decide we need more. XD

...Bah! Getting waaay ahead of myself. Sorry! >_< Anyways, before getting that far, what do you think about advanced classes? :lol:

Lol. Yeah, the banner needs changing...*cough* No disrespect intended, Derhlith. But...well...What he said. XD I've actually been thinking about asking my brother if he could create an artful banner for this place, but I guess it depends if you want to use his stuff or not. Or if you just want to use Mage's stuff, that's fine with me too. ^_^

Lol, or we could have them both create a banner and have a vote on it. :lol: Nah, just kidding, I'll leave the banner to you. :D

A small note. I think advertisement for an RP forum would be a lot more successful if there were examples of activity in it. Not just in the General Discussion area. ^^;; Not sure what we could do about the inactivity though...since most of us still here are working on the forum itself, not the quests. XD

~Crestierem

I too share reservations about letting people choose their own skills.

That much freedom may be fun for veteran RPers but it only serves to confuse noobs who will have no idea what skills they can have or what limits the can put on it.

"OMG I WAN A BEAM RIFLE!!!11"

"....no"

"Y NOT!?! I QUIT TIS GAME!!"

Ok, that's exagerations but you get the point. People will want to get unbeliveable skills right off the bat. Like ability to summon demons or flight... that stuff. In addition, a little structure is a lot healthier than you'd realize. Frankly, I prefer picking my skills out of a strict pool rather than out of thin air.


I was very curious in how we build up skills as well. I agree, it needs a minor overhaul. The one single path skill building is dull. People who want to have thier character follow a specific path are quite constrained. After all, not every mage wants their set skills. Perhaps elemental paths would be good for them. If you want to be an ice mage, you learn along the ice skill set. Maybe knights can choose to be jousters rather than fighters... I've got a really old list of elemental spells I made... somewhere around here. If you want, I'll post it up

I was actually thinking about elemental paths as well, but as I have stated before, I feel that it would give them an unfair advantage of variety and customization compared to the other classes. So for example, the themes I had in mind for knights were offensive (mainly 2-handed non-pole weapons) and defensive (shield and weapon stuffs), then the mage would get one for each element, 7 elements, so 7 themes. Two to seven is quite...a difference. Although, I have come up with 2 other possible themes for the knights so that it would be 4-7, but still an advantage. "Possible" being the word of question. ^^;;

As for knights possibly having jousting...that's actually quite interesting, though I'm not sure how many people would go for that. I also kinda wanted the skills to be somewhat vague to a certain extent, so for example, let's take my previous knight theme example and say that one skill for the offensive theme would be to bash the enemy with all their might, which could possibly break the opponents weapon or disarm them. I would like people to be able to do that with one-handed weapons as well, even though it wouldn't be as strong as if you were to do it two-handed. Or vice-versa, shield charge the opponent so that your protected while charging and on impact, you disrupt your targets balance for a bit. Again, a 2-handed weapon weilder can do this as well with their shoulder or something like that. Of course, they wouldn't get the protection of the shield, but they can still do it.

I kinda wanted to try and do something like that, although there will be some obvious things that are specifically for one that follows a particular theme. That's what I had in mind, and I'm not sure if it'll be implemted or not because I have to run it with the other admins first. ^^;;

As for the list please give 'em! :D All contributions are appreciated. ^_^

What happened to the last few pages?! o_O And all our avatars are "X"'s now. <_< I guess this is what happens when you slack off too much. Sorry. >.<

Anyways, does anyone still check this place up every now and then? :unsure:

Hey, I remembered my login!

Okay, as long as someone checks. X3

Now for excuse number #### or something like that! XD

Okay, well, in one of my previous posts (one of those ones that seriously mysteriously disappeared <_<), I mentioned that another person came back and had some interesting idea's. Well, I thought they were really interesting and started to take some VERY MINOR steps in implementing them. Suffice to say, I was overwhelmed by the work. Lots of planning and of course, LOTS of skills to make. >_<

Originally, I was going on a sorta altered version of my "theme" idea that I had described eariler. Only this time, all the classes would have 2 primary themes where they chose skills every even numbered level up to level 20 (or something like that), and then they'd have a number of secondary themes that they got to choose from every 8(?) levels which were somewhat out of the stereotypical class description. And the person can choose to go back and learn something from a previous level INSTEAD of learning something of their new level, so basically, a person can go up to level 8(?) and every even level after that, they can learn every skill from their secondary theme instead of constantly learning from the new levels.

Ex.
The knight's primary themes were offensive (brute strength) and defensive (defensive fighting, lots of counters and some skills for shields). Our knight, Tom, just reached level 8, allowing him access to the first set of secondary theme skills (these skills were those that were on the magicy side that was still physical in some way). But, Tom decides he doesn't like this list of skills, so he goes back to his level 6 selection and learned the skill that he did not choose when he first reached level 6.

Or something like that. :P

That was my original plan anyways. Then that other guy came, skimmed over our discussion, and suggested another idea which I found interesting. Basically he suggested that when a person first joins, they choose a class from a list of three (it was originally two, but I suggested a third one, and he agreed to it XD). A physical orientated class, a magical oriented class, and a dexterity oriented class. And for these 3 basic classes, they have a small list of skills that they can choose from that helps them more on the character/personality-wise, rather than combat like what we mostly have now. Then, once they reach a higher level (3-5 I think) then that's when they choose a formal class, or one of the classes we have set up now. (Short example, the basic magic class would be called something like Adept, then at higher level, they choose to become Mage, Cleric, or Druid). Also, when they choose one of the formal classes, the list of skills greatly increases and they can learn one every (#) level/s or something like that. There wouldn't necessarily be class walls like what we do now (a knight can't learn the mage spell Dark Circle at the moment ^^;;) but there would be requirements, and chain requirements, like in order to learn and use physical skills, you must first learn a skill called "Physically Able" which the basic physical class would start out with. And vice versa, to learn and use spells, you must first learn a skill called "Magically Attuned" which the basic magical class would start out with. And of course, there would be other restrictions like "You must be a Druid to learn this skill." or "You cannot learn this if you're a Ranger." and stuff like that. But the basic idea is that if you wanted to be a magic weilding knight, then you can learn the skills that'll make you that way. His magic won't be up to par with a primary magic class, but you can make one. And vice versa, and whatever other classes mixes there are. That's the sum of it.

The problem with that is that that'll mean I'd have to come up with TONS of skills and spells. And I was already having a hard time coming up with skills for the physical classes. It's kinda hard trying to be realistic, creative, and new, while staying in the thought process that they were originally a physical primary class, without having the skill seem like it's actually restricting the person because the skill didn't really need to become a skill since a person can logically, do it without training of sort, IF they had thought about it.

And then school began, I got teachers that couldn't teach, and I got caught up in that. >.<

Anyways, yeah, that's what's up, and since I shared a little of what's been discussed about the growth system and whatnot, what's your opinions, those who still check this up every now and then? ^_^ Or questions about them, either one. Although the latter one isn't exactly my idea, I'll answer the best I can. ^^;;

Edit: Dang, I just looked at my inbox, and the newest thing was something quite old. It's like everything that's happened in the past some months have been deleted. Weird stuffs... <_<

It's because the IF server crashed and killed lots of data. So much data was lost it forced a rollback to March of 2006.