Thanks to the thread Nightbringer started about the IRC chatroom for SHS, I decided to make some visits and see if anybody was even there.

Generally there are a few on every night, but my problem is, most of them are not from SHS, they are just random RPers. Not that I really have a problem with this, but they always ask me tons of questions about Sabine as if they were going to play with her. I am not playing Sabine with anyone outside of SHS, and had they been a member here, they would have all the information they wanted about her just by reading her profile.

Also, these "guests" usually do not adhere to the guidelines set up on the board, that monsters really shouldn't be humanoid, shouldn't be staff, etc. Once person in particular likes to play the role of a "teacher" for SHS, yet that person is not at all affiliated with this board...so...yeah?

I don't mean to sound like an elitist or prissy, but I think the SHS channel on IRC should be a place where SHS members can chat RP (sometimes that's easier for a storyline to advance quicker) only, or maybe just chit-chat OOCly.

Just my 2 cents.

I never like the IRC, and i never enter in the SHS IRC before.
But, why not a chat channel into the board? I play in other boards too, and in Neila City we use the chat channel from http://cbox.ws/ to talk into the board.
It's only an idea, but...

You mean like a chatroom hosted here on the boards? I've seen that on one other board based RP group I was in a while back and I kind of liked the idea. It was a way for people to meet a bunch of members all at once.

You'd think a place like a classroom would be a pretty populated area in a school, and just think of all the fun and carnage that could be had if a few monsters show up to a class of 15-20 girls?

I don't know how feasible it would be to do here or what kind of work would be involved (I am sure it would be a ton) to get something like that going here. But if I am on the SHS channel and want to RP there, I would hope the people I am RPing with would have some affiliation with the SHS, or if not, at least adhere to the guidelines.

I mean, I had a person trying to RP with me that he was a teacher that was shrunken down to 4" tall. Not really a monster, right? (especially since he was playing as a human) And he was male...so...there goes a few conventions right there.

I like those chat boxes, and a classroon is a great idea!
If a few players decide to be teachers and monsters, and others as students, we can make a huge rp! It's will take a lot of work, of corse, but i think it's possible.

We had a chatbox here for a while if I remember correctly =./ But I've been on so many boards it's hard to keep track of which had which.

I've never really been a fan of IRC. Character Limits drive me insane and I think there's a fine line between cyber & roleplay. I don't like to cyber, roleplay I love.

Vincent: As long as the monsters don't try to pose as teachers and never really get to a "monster form" or they try to pose as students for the same reasons.

Shai: Yeah, I sometimes have a tough time on chat based because the RP just isn't that in depth, even though the plot is pretty much already written. If I am typing three returns of detailed, good RP, then only get less than 1 return of stuff that just doesn't make sense, or involves actions being done for my character rather than letting me explain what my character is doing in regards to what is being done to her...well, it is discouraging.

I don't know, but having the visitors there actually following the SHS guidelines for monsters would be a good start.

Originally all roleplay was carried out in IRC. The channels were formed as a breakaway from another channel called #Demonrape which Niceman and I both visited regularly and were originally started to prevent anyone else from taking the SHS web site as a basis for an r/p channel.

At that time, of course, the channels were hosting anything from 10 - 30 visitors almost constantly and were regularly opped by myself, Niceman and about eight others. So it was easy to maintain those channels in the correct way.

Since then they went into decline because of various factors until Nightbringer (sp?) has attempted to revive them recently. However there is still not the needed core of ops and players to establish a strong theme and most visitors seem to arrive at random by doing a /list. Unless there is a fairly large number of our roleplayers who want to play on IRC I can't see that changing.

Regarding the potential for having a chat box here, I'm in two minds. Unlike many other locations, SHS is hosted on our own server and it has a corner of the machine that we use to run our business. So every time we open up some way of taking user input into the server, we open up the potential that it is a script which may not be fully secure.

A lot of people can and do write programs in php and js. Doing that is much easier than having a complete understanding about securing those scripts against malicious use and there is an old saying in server management - NTUI - never trust user input. It's a lot easier to leave a loophole by which something such as a buffer overflow can be used to gain remote control of a machine than it is to secure against that possibility. Just ask Microsoft

Even with malicious intent aside, a poorly written script can run out of control and grab a lot of server resources, fail to release resources, or cause long queues for the database. All of those slow down the server and stop it working properly. And as I said, this server is used to run our business so we can't afford that. So I'm not completely against the idea but I am certainly wary of it, especially when it isn't difficult for a group of players to arrange something external such as an IM conference for real time play. Or IRC....

Incidentally, when we did run a chat box, I think it was this site but it may have been another one, using the facility built into another message board, it never actually attracted any roleplay and was just full of 'hello anyone there' 'have you seen the latest cool game/movie?'

I knew adding a chatbox type of thing would be complex in ways way over my head and completely understand why it can't be implemented here.

I suppose the immediate remedy is to get enough of SHS's RP'ers on that IRC channel to set the tone. In the three or four nights I have visited, not one other SHS member has RP'ed with me, because usually the only one is the op. What I get are a number of PM's asking me what Sabine is like. Once I tell them and give them a link to her profile (which they probably don't even read), they start asking me what I like to play. Uh, I like to play as an SHS student that is open to attacks from monsters. Then it is generally a barrage of questions of what kind of sexual things I am into, etc, etc. When I ask them if they are familiar with the SHS guidelines I either get a no, or a yeah, but I kinda do my own thing. I have such and such a character who does such and such instead of what you see on SHS.

I am not opposed to RPing in the public main room with somebody else from SHS so that the room doesn't sit idle. Whomever joins me would have to realize that I wouldn't really be playing as Sabine, who has her own storyline and timeline going here. Maybe the OP at the time could make an OOC post (like what you see here? SHS message boards have plenty of eager students and hungry monsters just waiting for you, register your character today! [insert link to SHS here] )

I don't know. Just seems a shame that SHS has its own IRC chatroom and it really doesn't seem to be getting utilized to its full potential.

I'm an op on the channel; I haven't been around much (that pesky real life), but I'm willing to moderate the channel and encourage people to stay on theme when I am around. I'd just kind of like some guidance as to, you know, how far I should go with it...

From what I have seen the public channel usually stays on theme. (On those rare days that people are actually using it.) With the channel being open as it is, not everyone who visits is going to be an actual board member. I would hope that they would visit the link posted in the topic and consider joining but until told otherwise I'm not going to enforce it as a mandatory thing.

Wanting to RP with monsters or students whom are actual members of the board itself is fine.

I should mention a few things that were brought up in the original post. Some monsters do take on the role of Professors, though from my understanding it is supposed to be a temporary role for the most part though I think one or two do it regularly. Some monsters are also humanoid, though degree's and levels vary of course from monster to monster. Though yes the idea is that once they have lured the student off alone they are supposed to reveal their true nature and lots of tentacle goodness is supposed to ensue.

Private chat is impossible to moderate and personally I'd only step in if it seemed like someone was harassing someone else. If they don't follow the guidelines and you don't want to RP with them, tell them so. If they have a problem with it, that's exactly "their" problem.

I would hope that with mods being in place again and a topic being set that more people are slowly drawn back to IRC. I know we have a few students from the boards that show up and are auto ID'd by chan serv as such and a few monsters but personally I would love to see the chat restored to as it had been. If it does start showing signs of life, maybe the topic or entrance message can slightly start shifting to indicate different events that are taking place. -shrugs-

Well, that's the thing Night. It is the people who aren't members not even bothering to read the guidelines. I'm going to start putting those people on ignore and maybe if everyone does the same we'll eventually weed those types out.

Right, I do know that some monsters can form human disguises for what is supposed to be short term. I think an issue has been that they really haven't been following that guideline. I personally witnessed that twice in play on the boards.

By the way, these things have been happening in PMs, not the public room, so I know there really isn't much to do about that. I will just personally weed these people out, but yeah, I wouldn't mind like setting up some kind of beach party on IRC only to have it crashed by a few monsters.

Clarification:

Monsters can masquerade as staff members on a temporary basis. They can't play actually being staff members.

Monsters can masquerade as human up to the point of attack. They can't play actually being human.

We had enough trouble in the past with guys playing love-struck humans who wanted to sit around reciting poetry to woo girls, picking up dropped handkerchiefs, putting their cloaks across puddles and generally acting like complete dorks when all the girls wanted was a good, heavy ravaging. There's more than enough normal cyber channels out there without it polluting our roleplay.