Community

I have been looking forward to doing this month's review. As everyone is aware, I am the GM for the Core Coliseum group, so it should be of no big surprise that when my group steps up and shines, that I am proud to be a part of it.

The Core Coliseum has struggled and scraped its way along since becoming a group with all of the other Play-by-Post groups out there. It hasn't always been easy for us to have weekly fights and occasionally we saw one side of the arena close and then reopen. Of course, we have also seen people come and go.

For a while, the Core Coliseum has been lumbering along with 5-6 core players (4-5 in Gladius and 2-3 in Sagaris), but at the end of last month, Gladius suddenly sprung up to 8 players and, unfortunately, Sagaris dwindled to 1-2. Gladius saw the return of one of the "Oldtimers" who hasn't played in years, as well as some brand new players. I am truly happy to have each of them playing.

With the influx of players has come a revival in our post count, fight count and overall excitement. Things are hopping over at the Core Coliseum these days, and the numbers speak for themselves. The highest post count we managed in my recorded history was 862 posts. This month, we shattered that with 1122 posts! In the last ten weeks, we have hosted 102 fights compared to the previous ten weeks, where we only hosted 82. In other words, the Core Coliseum is on an upward trend and I think everyone should come and check it out and see if it is right for you.

Furthermore, the Core Coliseum is quickly approaching its one THOUSANDTH fight since becoming a group. Unofficially, we'll pass that number THIS MONTH!

Otherwise, things have been plugging along in the two more active groups - Play-by-Post Haven and Real Adventures. They are never short on their post counts, and are as reliable as your proverbial grandfather's car.

Map of the Planes and Coalition War Game also deserve mention because their numbers this month are better than the last 6 months for the former and better than 5 of the last 6 months in the case of the latter.

In total, the PbP groups managed to maintain the decent pace we had last month. I expect this month will be better. Don't let down my expectations people!

Participate in a Play-by-Post group today: it will make you feel better.

Castle of Fun
Coalition War Game
Core Coliseum
D20 Modern
Garic's City
Gleemax Roleplaying
Magic, Puzzles, Fun and Games
Map of the Planes
Paranoia Paradise
Play-by-Post Haven
Real Adventures
Terisia City and Fan Fiction
The Guild House

As a final note, I am going to put a link to highlight another website. Blue Moon Aurora hosts a play-by-post forum that has a wide assortment of Duets - single-player, single-DM games - which are really not available in the Wizards community as well as a number of other games. If you haven't checked it out - I think it is worth your attention.

State of the Play by Post groups: February 2012

The month of love has come and shown how much play-by-posters love to play. Seriously - we had some good things to account for this month, and I'm not shy about it. Be happy PbP-world, we're here and we're playing!

After several straight months of lagging numbers, I am happy to report that we beat last month's numbers by a 50% margin, that we exceeded the numbers from January, December and October (and was darn close to November's!). This means we're still "low" in terms of the last 22 months (the length of my survey), but in the immediate term - it is looking good.

Part of this growth is significant "bounce-back" by Real Adventures. The last couple of months have been "slow" over there with about a 1.5% growth in the last two months. This month they return with double that. 3% growth for them is about 2500 posts - so that's significant folks. Big numbers from them and kudos to that. I'm proud to be a player in a couple of games over there. I wish I was still running some games - but that will have to come later...

Less remarkable, but still important, growth is coming from the shores of the Coalition War Game and the Core Coliseum.

Coalition War Game has been floating between 1% and 2% growth for the last half year, but jumped up to almost 3.5% this month. They are more subject to volatility since they have a relatively small number of posts to begin with, but this is still remarkable. At just over 5000 posts in their group - they are doing just fine thank you!

The Core Coliseum is also experiencing some growth, though the post numbers are deceptive. The previous 6 months of growth are as follows: 4.25%, 4.22%, 3.57%, 3.8%, 3.63% and 4.47%. This month it is a slight improvement to 4.53%. Truthfully - that 0.06% difference accounts for a 38 post difference between the two months. Yet - this is significant! Why? Because we have new players! In the past month, I've had 2 new players join the fray and they are tearing it up and enjoying the atmosphere of fighting to your wit's end week after week.

Of even more significant note, I've had visits from not one, but TWO of the "old timers" of the Core Coliseum and one of those has even signed up to play again.

The Core Coliseum is nearing 1000 fights since becoming a group back in September 2009. This is a big milestone for us - so I'm happy to say it is coming sooner and sooner as more people join in.

Lastly, I do want to mention that my reporting of activity in The Guild House is continuing! Still early in the process of rebuilding over there, but there are signs of life. So go participate and be a part of the revival already!

I think that's it for the month. Make it a plan and get some posting in. The play by post groups need all the activity we can get and from the Core Coliseum to Gleemax Roleplaying to The Guild House, we would all love to have some extra activity. Challenge us! Make us wonder why we ever took on so much responsibility as GMing these wonderful groups with gobs and gobs of awesome, flavor-filled posts.

So what are you waiting for? Join today!

Castle of Fun
Coalition War Game
Core Coliseum
D20 Modern
Garic's City
Gleemax Roleplaying
Magic, Puzzles, Fun and Games
Map of the Planes
Paranoia Paradise
Play-by-Post Haven
Real Adventures
Terisia City and Fan Fiction
The Guild House

As a final note, I am going to put a link to highlight another website. Blue Moon Aurora hosts a play-by-post forum that has a wide assortment of Duets - single-player, single-DM games - which are really not available in the Wizards community as well as a number of other games. If you haven't checked it out - I think it is worth your attention.

There's a lot to talk about this month, so let's get right to it. First off, overall, in terms of pure number of posts, this was the slowest month in my recorded history. Last month was the slowest at that time as well. And yet, at the end of the day, I think this was a good month.

Why?

Well, first off, there's some true breakthrough on a few of the groups. Sure Real Adventures and Paranoia Paradise and Play-by-Post Haven have all slowed down in comparison to previous months and Gleemax Roleplaying wasn't able to keep a high rate (but still decent for itself), but there are some good indicators.

Let's take a look at The Guild House. This group has fallen into inactivity since May 2011. Just a couple of days ago, Zombatman has started trying to rekindle things. It is a slow process, so he doesn't have a lot of new posts there. But the point is - someone is putting the effort in. I wish Zombatman all the luck in getting it revived and if there's any help I can provide, I will certainly do so.

Furthermore, Map of the Planes is continuing a steady stream of posts. For the last 2 months, it was 1.05% for each month and this month it has boosted up to 1.28%. Not a huge increase, but every little bit counts.

Lastly, my own group - the Core Coliseum - is seeing some great performance increase. 4.47% growth (662 new posts) gets us over the 15000 post mark and is the largest percentage of growth for the Core Coliseum since January of 2011! This growth is in no small part to having one member joining the other side of the Core Coliseum (he was a long-time Gladius (3.5e) player and has recently branched into Sagaris (4e) and continues on in both) and the presence of just one more player. Obviously, I'm still looking for more players, but it does feel good to see some solid growth in the face of everything else.

Next month should have a significant milestone to make note of: Play-by-Post Haven is just on the verge of 50000 posts. For all of you over there, make sure you get your posts in and support the growth of your PbP group.

Castle of Fun
Coalition War Game
Core Coliseum
D20 Modern
Garic's City
Gleemax Roleplaying
Magic, Puzzles, Fun and Games
Map of the Planes
Paranoia Paradise
Play-by-Post Haven
Real Adventures
Terisia City and Fan Fiction
The Guild House

As a final note, I am going to put a link to highlight another website. Blue Moon Aurora hosts a play-by-post forum that has a wide assortment of Duets - single-player, single-DM games - which are really not available in the Wizards community as well as a number of other games. If you haven't checked it out - I think it is worth your attention.

As many know, December is a busy time pretty much the world round (okay - maybe just the world I know - which is admittedly small). With most cultures/religions having some major holidays during the course of the month, it is no surprise that there are plenty of people who take a break from posting while they also take a break from school, work and other activities. I am one of these people, which is why my post is 2 days later than I planned and why I am unapologetic about it. Quite frankly it was nice to sit down with the family and open some presents gosh darn it!

This is the slowest month in my recorded history - both in terms of percentage growth (1.66%) and in terms of raw post count (5093). I don't let this get me down though because there is some good life in here, you just need to look harder to find it.

What do I mean? Well let's highlight the Core Coliseum, Coalition War Game, Gleemax Roleplaying and Map of the Planes. All four of these groups didn't have stellar growth this month (no group did), but all four of them did have at least as good production as the month before. Holidays come and go, but play-by-post roleplaying is here to stay!

Real Adventures, Play-by-Post Haven and Paranoia Paradise, the three of which comprise just over 75% of the total post count that I watch, each had slow months. Since I play and run a couple of games over at Real Adventures, I will say I felt this slow down there. I cannot say I felt a slow down at the Core Coliseum - and for good reason: we didn't have one!

January is typically a bounce-back month in some ways, so I'm hopeful that next month is a "return" to greater things. I am hoping to revive the games I'm running and to maybe look into expanding the opportunities at the Core Coliseum - particularly in the area of the 4e arena (Sagaris).

Stay Tuned! I may be expecting a cold winter physically, but on the internet, I expect things to be hot in this little corner of the virtual world.

Support your local PbP Group!

Castle of Fun
Coalition War Game
Core Coliseum
D20 Modern
Garic's City
Gleemax Roleplaying
Magic, Puzzles, Fun and Games
Map of the Planes
Paranoia Paradise
Play-by-Post Haven
Real Adventures
Terisia City and Fan Fiction
The Guild House

As a final note, I am going to put a link to highlight another website. Blue Moon Aurora hosts a play-by-post forum that has a wide assortment of Duets - single-player, single-DM games - which are really not available in the Wizards community as well as a number of other games. If you haven't checked it out - I think it is worth your attention.

Might as well call this post "No I am not done yet."

Took me the better part of an hour and a half to get through another 2866 words tonight. This is still a great rate of production, and while I don't necessarily mind how the scene has gone, I really don't like where the story ended ultimately. I'll write up the closing tomorrow and set it down for at least all of December.

But the writing process is not done and I'm hoping that I'll have gained the discipline to continue working on into December on other projects, ultimately to fulfill my goal of getting published. I would like to have something out there for 2012. I would like it so much that I am making it my only goal for the year.

This particular challenge is almost over. I've had a lot of fun this year. I did go back to my posts from last year and saw that I had decided I would outline the whole novel for this year. Yeah - that went well...

Maybe next year I'll try that. Maybe by this time next year I'll be in a position to say, "Hey - let's actually get something publishable out of NaNo" and maybe I'll still be doing it just for the fun and the challenge.

Who knows? I certainly don't. But before I can get to next year - I still have a little bit to finish for this year. 2629 to be precise. Though - that said - it might be a little more or less - I don't really know. I should probably go check, but I think I'd rather get through the rest on my own and then figure out what I need after the fact.

Total word count: 47371 (972 behind pace)
1 day to go: 2629 words to finish.

Okay, today was an exercise in torture - both in a figurative sense - in that I had no desire to write anything given my mood and how my day went - but also in a literal sense - as the scenes I wrote tonight were a dream sequence in which one of the main characters (who has a bit of a debaucherous backstory and who was thrust on his journey when he was found in bed with the maimed and dismembered bodies of several women) tortured one of the others. He's been fighting this whole "Who am I?" question all through the book and this is really where he comes to question whether he is really a terrible person.

I'm not at all in love with how the two scenes went, but I wrote them and for now at least, they are staying. I had set a "Box of Doom" to 90 minutes with an "average" hardness and it spat out a goal of 2980 words in that time frame. I called it a few minutes early and discovered I had reached 2995. This is the first time I've tried a long time frame (usually I do boxes for 15-30 minutes). It's daunting to have such a large goal, but I think it was good for me overall. I really didn't want to spend all night writing, so I put the stop point at about 11pm - which was conveniently 90 minutes away.

So, in any case, I exceeded my minimum goal by a little more than a hundred words. This will make the next two days a little easier to finish up... hopefully.

Total word count: 44505 (2171 behind pace)
5495 words to go - 2748 words for each of the next two days...

Today was a productive writing day. Setting a lofty goal of 4-5k was a bit of a stretch, but might not be all that unreasonable in the end. I mean - it's only 9:30pm - I could get a couple thousand more done if I really buckled down.

I'm not however. I managed 2898 over the course of writing-every-moment-I-had-available today. I literally had the laptop in hand wherever I went and wrote a couple words here, a sentence or two there while taking the kids to the park, cleaning up the mess that the kids had made (all over the (*&^*&^ apartment) and whatever else I managed to get done today.

This still means I should probably hit close to 3000 each of the next three days and that is not a small number, especially considering I am entering a very busy couple of weeks for work.

I'm confident though. 8500 words in 3 days sounds much more manageable than 12k in 4 days was when I sat down yesterday. And then I realized it was 5 days, because I hadn't actually set down to write as well - so it was even better. You just need to find those silver linings...

Anyway - I'm taking a break for now. I'm going to treat myself to some sherbet because it sounds so good right now and maybe watch one of the hundreds of shows that were DVR'ed and neglected this month as I chose to write instead of watching television. Maybe before bed I'll challenge myself with another 1k or something. Maybe not. We'll see.

Total Word Count: 41510 (3499 behind pace)

Well a cold has really derailed me but at the same time, it is not so dire that I can't finish. I finally sat down and wrote 1170 last night and I figured I might get started earlier today, so I ever wrote a whopping 150 this morning.

At this point, I'm in the territory that I have to work hard to get it finished, but it is definitely doable. I just need to set my knuckles to the keyboard.

I need to produce a little over 3k each day, but I'm going to aim for 4-5k today to help ease the stress for the weekdays that are left.

Crunch time!

Due to Thanksgiving coming, I'm doing this a couple of days early.

Overall, we had about the same month as we did last month, though with about an 8% increase in the number of posts over last month's total.

I don't have a lot to say about the numbers. I haven't heard back from Bounty.Hunter about the restart over at Terisia City and Fan Fiction and Castle of Fun, D20 Modern, The Guild House and Magic, Puzzles, Fun and Games are all non-active as well. I would love to see any one of these get a refresh, but I think at this point it is more likely someone would create a group to replace them.

In terms of growth percentage, Play-by-Post Haven and Core Coliseum were the front runners, but the percentage for both of them is lower overall than their average in the last 18 months. Real Adventures comes up third.

But what does this actually mean? Core Coliseum had over 500 new posts in the last month; Real Adventures featured a little over 1800 posts and Play-by-Post Haven had about 1800 as well. It is probably a bit of a disservice to call that low production, even if it is only 2-4% growth overall. Of course, Paranoia Paradise had only 1.75% growth, but since their base is so large, that is actually another 1800 posts as well.

So is 1800 something to worry about? I don't think so. Even at 500 posts for the Core Coliseum, I see so much of then as very high quality posts or the fights that we run.

The Core Coliseum has been enjoying some amount of new players over the last couple of months, but this month I've had a couple of PM queries but no actual responses from it. I'm hoping December will see these new people come out of the woodwork.

Castle of Fun
Coalition War Game
Core Coliseum
D20 Modern
Garic's City
Gleemax Roleplaying
Magic, Puzzles, Fun and Games
Map of the Planes
Paranoia Paradise
Play-by-Post Haven
Real Adventures
Terisia City and Fan Fiction
The Guild House

As a final note, I am going to put a link to highlight another website. Blue Moon Aurora hosts a play-by-post forum that has a wide assortment of Duets - single-player, single-DM games - which are really not available in the Wizards community as well as a number of other games. If you haven't checked it out - I think it is worth your attention.

I took a bit of a break on Sunday and Monday. If there was ever days that I wasn't in the mood to write, I guess those were the days. I did try on Sunday, but after 300 words, I had given up and just went to bed. I was exhausted.

Monday wasn't much better and a two and a half hour commute didn't have me relishing sitting at a computer either. So I took the break and didn't look back.

Unfortunately, it is tough to get out of that kind of mode and so I spent some of my day today dreading getting back to it. I'm on the home stretch, but there's still plenty of work to be done.

Still, I walked away from the TV, sat down and focused. I'm having trouble with my current predicament in the story, but I'm working through it and I think I've finally gotten some where. Unfortunately, I think I'm at the end - so what the heck do I do with the rest of it?

I definitely don't know. I am going to try to just keep plugging at it though and see what I can manage.

Anyway - I wrote just over 1700 words tonight in about an hour with 1100 of that in a 30 minute word war. If I didn't get anything written today I was going to be behind pace; with the words I did write, I'm less than a day's-worth ahead.

Total word count: 37442 (768 ahead of pace).