[MechWarrior Kazuki Kintaro]

As you can already tell, the forums are back up and running. However, this has come at a price.

Mike, who played Ben Maxwell and was the founder and driving force behind crayven.net, has gone on an indefinite hiatus. In his own words he told me:

“I’m just not interested in investing an incredible amount of time and resources into a project that people keep showing a huge interest in, and then bailing on.”

As angry and frustrated I am with this, I cannot entirely blame him for giving up.

During my time as a writer and administrator here at crayven.net, I have been witness to some incredible highs. Some of the writing here is just utterly fantastic. The reboot we started just a couple months ago is proof that the content on this site is worth investing time in, and yet, in spite of all this creativity and genius, the forum is confounded by this repeating curse of users bailing on it.

I can appreciate when people say they are busy outside in the real world, but to be quite frank, half of the time this notion seems to be born out of convenience rather than any actual goings on outside of the internet. Let me give you a break down of a typical day for me:

I work my day job doing car rentals on behalf of the British Forces from 08:30 hrs – 16:30 hrs (sometimes this spills into and over 17:00 hrs depending on whether or not anything last minute has presented itself). I then go home, cook something to eat and do some chores around the flat. Then, from 18:30 hrs – 23:00 hrs I work my secondary job as a concept and storyboard artist for Middle Name Productions. Usually, on a Friday and Saturday, I am working until the early hours of the morning (my current record is 03:00 hrs).

In spite of my busy schedule, I still find time to write. Want to know how I managed it? Because I want to. Maybe I wasn’t physically able to write every single day, but I averaged at 5-6 posts a week. What literally brings my blood to a boil is the fact that, like Mike and other die-hards, I have invested a lot of time thinking up story arcs and content that ultimately gets cast asunder due to lack of user interest. If Mike was around, he would surely testify my point by confirming that I had sent him multiple PM’s with entire synopsises for upcoming Ops and story arcs. Sometimes it feels like I am pissing into the wind.

I hate to bring up money, but some of you have invested hard earned cash into this. Maybe $30 or $40 doesn’t seem like much, but I cannot fathom why anyone would give up on something they have put money into. I personally have donated twice and was gutted to see things grind to a halt multiple times. So why am I pointing this out? Because the very people who were able to donate have proven that they are dedicated. That doesn’t mean that those who couldn’t donate aren’t dedicated – the very fact that they wanted to is testament to their dedication.

Dedication; what a powerful word. I have no doubt that every single user here came into this with the best of intentions at heart and a strong desire to dedicate a portion of their time and creativity into something truly fantastical. The fundamental problem with this forum is that dedication and interest wanes. It isn’t always real life that tears users away from this forum. People just find that they can’t be fucked to write anymore. I’m not unrealistic – I know that sometimes this cannot be helped.

Ask yourself this question: Do you find it a chore to write here?

If you answered ‘yes’ then you have been wasting your time posting here. Nobody likes to do a chore. With that in mind, why do you waste time by lying to yourself and everyone here when posting ‘I’m still interested, but I don’t have the time’ or something to that effect. You accomplish very little by doing this. All you are doing is saving face. If you said ‘yes’ to this question, follow Mike’s example by being honest. Tell everyone here that you don’t want to invest time in this anymore. I’m not going to lie – some people are going to be pissed off and upset if you choose this route (myself included), but by doing this, you are being honest and you can at least be respected for doing that. Pussyfooting around just to save face places you in ‘the grey area’. It safely relieves you of all responsibility by steering away from the white and black of the situation. It means you cannot be blamed nor accommodated for your actions. The worst thing about stepping into the grey area is you instil a sense of false hope in the die-hards. Do yourself and everyone here a favour by explaining exactly where you stand so that the rest of us can move on with or without you.

If you answered ‘no’ to my question then there is still hope. However, by giving this answer, you have to be damn sure that you mean it. There is nothing more infuriating to me then having someone say they are prepared to get involved only to find that the honeymoon period has worn off after a couple weeks and they cannot be arsed anymore.

So what’s the first thing we need to do? The first thing that I want every user to do is to plainly say where they want to go with this. Don’t waste everyone’s time by giving some sort of cryptic bullshit reply. In plain English, explain your intentions. Don’t justify past actions because I’m not interested right now. I am only interested in gathering numbers.

I still have the interest and the desire to keep the story and this forum alive. However, I will only be posting if others plan on joining in. If the vast majority leave, then I will not waste time in simply posting as my character over and over again.

Whatever happens, as far as I am aware, the forums will be staying open.

I’m sorry I am being a cunt about this. I’m sorry that you’ve had to put up with a shitty rant about something that pales in the grand scheme of everything. However, I hold this site very close to my heart and it is something that I’ve invested blood, sweat and tears into. Make your choice. Be clear about it and I will respect whatever you decide to do.

Once I know what numbers we are dealing with, we can plan the next step.

Keith

[Lieutenant Commander Marcus Braddock]

Time invested that isn't time enjoyed is time wasted.
Honestly, I think I might feel a bit sunk without Ben - but I'm willing to knuckle up and work around/through that if that's what's needed.
"I still have the interest and the desire to keep the story and this forum alive."

(After all that - What did happen to the forum? I was flipping out for the two weeks or so.)

This post has been edited by Lieutenant Commander Marcus Braddock: 25 February 2010 - 07:14 AM

[Captain Adam Wolf]

Well you already know my stance on all of this Keith, but just so its clear for everyone else as well. I am definately here to stay. I too have a very busy life with school, part time job, martial arts, and church youth group leader all of which I am actively and regularly involved in, but I thoroughly enjoy posting here, especially when things are under full swing, and provided we keep going I will be posting regularly as well.

[Captain Adam Wolf]

Lieutenant Commander Marcus Braddock, on 25 February 2010 - 07:14 AM, said:

(After all that - What did happen to the forum? I was flipping out for the two weeks or so.)

Marcus, I'm not entirely sure on the details of what exactly happened, but I believe there was some kind of an error in the database, something that unfortunately carried over from the switch to the new forum system and that was unfortunately not caught sooner becuase it did not present itself until the crash. As near as I understand it the crash caused the server database to be misdirected when looking for parts of the site, hence the 404 error that everyone kept recieving, myself included. I believe the reason it took so long to get it fixed was because it was unclear as to exactly how much interest there was in the forum still and unknown exactly how long it would take or how hard it would be to fix the database, and whether it was worth the time and effort spent (my own experience with databases and the like leads me to know that it could take a considerable amount of time to track down what could simply be one faulty line of code in the countless number of entries in the database).

Don't worry though, you weren't the only one wondering what the f* was going on, lol. I'm just glad that things are back up and running again. With any luck, we'll be moving forward again shortly.

[Lieutenant Commander Marcus Braddock]

Nice. Well suffice to say, I was checking it almost daily and getting decidedly tired of the blue screen of fear and panic as I've henceforth decided to dub it. (Amusing message bubble, incidentally - who wrote that?)

It's very reassuring to see you both still solidly in your stance. Good to hear.

[Captain Adam Wolf]

Blue screen of fear and panic lol, nice its got a catchy ring to it.

I believe it was Ben that wrote the amusing message bubble, the 404 error was from crayven.net itself which is his brain child, or possibly one of the original crew way back when crayven.net was born (well before the original Legionnaires even existed), but either way I'm still giving Ben credit for it, lol.

As for our stance, I can't speak for anyone else but for me I love this site for a couple of reasons. First of all, I've always enjoyed reading the posts that everyone puts up, having a very active and vivid imagination, plus having a bit of a thing for giant robots blasting the shit out of everything, the stories and stuff posted on here makes for very entertaining reads. Secondly, the site works as a break from the real world, an escape if you will, that allows me to relax and unwind. Surprisingly enough writing an hour or two long post also does wonders for relieving stress, I'd have to say its almost on par with doing my martial arts, and without the sore muscles after a good workout, lol.

[MechWarrior Kazuki Kintaro]

I'm glad to see you are both onboard.

I will wait another day or so before I present some viable options for the way forward.

[MechWarrior Alex Thorn]

I'm glad to see this site back up. Like most of you I was flipping out when I couldn't access it. In fact I would check like three times a day to see if it would ever come back up.

As for posting I am still interested in posting on this site. I realized just how much I enjoyed it and missed doing it when the site was down. So you can definitely count me in to stay. Besides, being a graphic designer and being creative, this gives me a chance to get my writing creativity some practice. Especially since I'm working on writing a book. Glad to see you guys are still in and that this is back up. So once again count me in!

[Captain Adam Wolf]

Awesome glad to have you in as well Alex. Even if its just the four of us that are able to post regularly or even semi-regularly I'm still looking forward to getting things moving again, I've got a couple of ideas on how we can move forward as well, however I'll wait until Keith puts up his ideas to post my own.

Definately looking forward to getting things rolling again.

[MechWarrior Kazuki Kintaro]

Thank you for getting back to me guys.

Okay, so I’ve drawn up some options. Please add to them or make suggestions of your own.

Option 1 – We carry on OPII as planned with me and Adam coordinating the story structure. This of coarse means we have to have our characters explaining the actions of those who are missing. It also means we have to take into account several unresolved plot threads that were part of something much broader and, ultimately, unrealised. On the plus side, it means we get to reenact OPII in all its glory.

Option 2 – In the story, we have Maxwell form a second squad comprised of our characters to deal with a secondary objective during OPII. This is something I believe will work better since we are a small group right now. Basically, OPII goes ahead with Maxwell leading one squad and Adam leading our squad. The reader only sees the point of view from our squad. It means we don’t have to fumble around trying to imagine what someone else’s character is doing. In addition, it also means we have time to think about how to deal with missing characters. I have a basic idea in my head that I believe could be expanded into something that works really well. However, to avoid spoiling it for everyone, the only person I’ll go into detail about this is with Adam.

Option 3 – We return to Revolution and reboot that. This was an idea me and Adam had a while ago. We realised the problems with Revolution but we also realised its potential. We came up with a couple ideas over Facebook chat that seemed okay on paper. There is one fundamental problem with this though. The forum is completely fucked. It looks as if the user database is missing. I cannot login, nor can I create a new character. It would mean we would have to once again pester a retired Mike into setting it up for us. Either that or we make our own RPG forum, but I have no idea how to do that.

Those are the options I have come up with so far. One thing that I do suggest we do is, after each OP we either take a break to avoid becoming stagnant OR we set ourselves a very short period to do ‘out of OP’ things.

What do you guys think?

[Lieutenant Commander Marcus Braddock]

MechWarrior Kazuki Kintaro, on 26 February 2010 - 06:24 PM, said:

Option 2 – In the story, we have Maxwell form a second squad comprised of our characters to deal with a secondary objective during OPII. This is something I believe will work better since we are a small group right now. Basically, OPII goes ahead with Maxwell leading one squad and Adam leading our squad. The reader only sees the point of view from our squad. It means we don't have to fumble around trying to imagine what someone else's character is doing. In addition, it also means we have time to think about how to deal with missing characters. I have a basic idea in my head that I believe could be expanded into something that works really well. However, to avoid spoiling it for everyone, the only person I'll go into detail about this is with Adam.

I'm all for continuing this story canon, as I was really pumped for OPII anyway before all this went down.

As for breaks between ops, I'm totally open to whatever/however anyone else wants it. I think we had the beginnings of the right shape of things already in how we were running things, with a sort of 'shore leave' vibe to the Tau Ceti/Outreach threads etc. In most cases there wouldn't be major plot developments needing to be focussed on in these periods, so posting requirements could be a tad lax as required, while still giving blokes who are hanging around scope to do something if they feel the need.

Thoughts?

[Captain Adam Wolf]

Awesome these are some great suggestions for how we can move forward and actual encompass or are similar to what I had in mind as well, hence the reason I decided to wait until these were up first, lol.

MechWarrior Kazuki Kintaro, on 26 February 2010 - 03:24 AM, said:

Option 1 – We carry on OPII as planned with me and Adam coordinating the story structure. This of coarse means we have to have our characters explaining the actions of those who are missing. It also means we have to take into account several unresolved plot threads that were part of something much broader and, ultimately, unrealised. On the plus side, it means we get to reenact OPII in all its glory.

This definately works, though it would be alot more work I think and while I'm confident we could pull it off I dont think it would be as much fun. The unresolved plot threads alone can be enough to make my head spin sometimes, lol.

MechWarrior Kazuki Kintaro, on 26 February 2010 - 03:24 AM, said:

Option 2 – In the story, we have Maxwell form a second squad comprised of our characters to deal with a secondary objective during OPII. This is something I believe will work better since we are a small group right now. Basically, OPII goes ahead with Maxwell leading one squad and Adam leading our squad. The reader only sees the point of view from our squad. It means we don’t have to fumble around trying to imagine what someone else’s character is doing. In addition, it also means we have time to think about how to deal with missing characters. I have a basic idea in my head that I believe could be expanded into something that works really well. However, to avoid spoiling it for everyone, the only person I’ll go into detail about this is with Adam.

I'd have to say this is definately my prefered option and fits perfectly with the story we already have setup, it'll take nothing to logically explain Maxwell taking a second squad to assist the other mercenary unit or something along those lines. This is basically what I had come up with as my main idea as well, mine actually involved a couple other factions in the Battletech universe though so this one actually fits a little easier. I look forward to seeing what other details you've come up with Keith.

MechWarrior Kazuki Kintaro, on 26 February 2010 - 03:24 AM, said:

Option 3 – We return to Revolution and reboot that. This was an idea me and Adam had a while ago. We realised the problems with Revolution but we also realised its potential. We came up with a couple ideas over Facebook chat that seemed okay on paper. There is one fundamental problem with this though. The forum is completely fucked. It looks as if the user database is missing. I cannot login, nor can I create a new character. It would mean we would have to once again pester a retired Mike into setting it up for us. Either that or we make our own RPG forum, but I have no idea how to do that.

Another tempting idea that is also a viable option, but again requires much more work. Also the Revolution universe and storyline are entirely different from the Battletech universe, while thats not a bad thing it does mean there would be more work involved, not to mention to technical side of things with the issues the boards themselves are having. While I would be willing to put in what time I could to bring the old Revolution boards back up to date and running again, I would say right now that this is my least favourite option, but definately an idea I'm keeping in the back of my mind. At some point I would like to try and implement some of the ideas that Keith and I talked about but thats neither here nor there. Also while I do have a somewhat extensive technical background, I'm in the same boat as Keith right now having no real idea how to make a new forum from scratch. I can easily work with existing ones and stuff, but beyond that is out of the question right now.

Lieutenant Commander Marcus Braddock, on 26 February 2010 - 03:44 AM, said:

I'm all for continuing this story canon, as I was really pumped for OPII anyway before all this went down.

As for breaks between ops, I'm totally open to whatever/however anyone else wants it. I think we had the beginnings of the right shape of things already in how we were running things, with a sort of 'shore leave' vibe to the Tau Ceti/Outreach threads etc. In most cases there wouldn't be major plot developments needing to be focussed on in these periods, so posting requirements could be a tad lax as required, while still giving blokes who are hanging around scope to do something if they feel the need.

Thoughts?

I agree with Marcus that we definately had the right idea for between OPs started up with the reboot, the whole 'shore leave' idea fits really well and allows people to both take a breif break as well as develop their characters outside of missions if they want. I also agree with Keith that I think we need to have a semi-rigid set amount of time for each session of 'shore leave' so that things dont slide away into limbo. I dont really know what would be a good amount of time between missions right now, guess it would depend partly on how long the missions themselves are. By having a set time to start the next mission though it would make it easier for those that wish to take a break, because they would know when they should come back, and also allow whoever is designing the next mission some time to work out finer details and get everything set up, and also may help to motivate those of us that may procrastinate if no time frame is set. (slowly raises his hand guiltily, yes I'm referring to myself on that one, lol)

All in all, I really like the setup we have right now with both the Canon for the Legionnaires as well as style and format on the boards themselves. We've got alot of potential here, and while we may have lost some very valuable people due to varying circumstances, there are still several extremely talented individuals here and you all are interested in continueing forward with us so I'm confident that we will do just that. Who knows, once we get going there's always the potential to gain more people again, both old friends and new.

[Lieutenant Commander Marcus Braddock]

A preset time length for shore leave. Brilliant thinking Adam. That gives people who need/want a break the time they need, while giving a definite window of time for people looking forward to getting back into the thick of things.

[MechWarrior Alex Thorn]

Quote

Option 2 – In the story, we have Maxwell form a second squad comprised of our characters to deal with a secondary objective during OPII. This is something I believe will work better since we are a small group right now. Basically, OPII goes ahead with Maxwell leading one squad and Adam leading our squad. The reader only sees the point of view from our squad. It means we don’t have to fumble around trying to imagine what someone else’s character is doing. In addition, it also means we have time to think about how to deal with missing characters. I have a basic idea in my head that I believe could be expanded into something that works really well. However, to avoid spoiling it for everyone, the only person I’ll go into detail about this is with Adam

I have to agree with yall on this one. This option seems like it is the best for us in the current situation, and it will give a little more freedom with what we do and where we go with the site

[MechWarrior Kazuki Kintaro]

Option 2 it is!

Adam, I have send you a PM with a basic outline and idea. Tell me what you think.

Cheers, Keith