Ideas Moving Forward

Ok, so i know a fair few of you are sighing when you see i have a created a thread but just pay attention. With Tat's departure, many of us have been starting to think about the future and what the structure of AFW would look like going forward. While Kels is busy thinking and working something out, i thought it would be a semi-good idea to have a melting pot where we could brain dump some of our ideas and to Politely discuss them. I won't stand for any trolling or flaming on this thread; we are grown ups, and we can discuss ideas without resorting to name calling. So without further ado, ima dump my ideas here:

I would say that with Tat's departure from the board, a rift has been highlighted. Its not about veterans and newbies, or even the good and the bad RPers, but i think it has been highlighted that we are not ONE AFW; We are actually a group of small AFW universes that happen to co-exist. Now i know certain board members don't like it when this is bought up, but there are RPing circles on this board, and when you get into one it can be difficult to get out of them. Now this isn't purely down to Cliques or groups of friends (though that is some of the issue),it is more down to the fact once we have found a character we like we develop that character around us and only rarely go out and seek a new character to add into the mix. Now i am not saying that this is a bad thing, It is infact how many new people get started. It is more an issue that they don't move on from it. Fixing an issue is not quick, or by no means easy, but i do have a few ideas. Outlined below.

1): Make PPVs Great Again!

As a Brit, i am not apologising for the way i worded that title, i have always wanted an excuse to use the 'great again' clause. Ok, so, I have never understood why any Tom, Dick and Harry can walk in and create a PPV thread. I know that they are for important matches, but everyone has a different opinion of what is an important match. One of the first (and simple) things i think can be done is to revoke everyone's rights to create threads in the PPV section. This would right away reduce the number of PPV threads and would start to make them feel special once again. A PPV should be a special event, that has build up and a story behind it, as well as shockwaves after it is finished. If people want to do PPV threads, either the Mods have to set it up, or they can apply to the mods, telling them what they want to do and showing them the evidence that have worked to create a good story line. I know a fair few people would be opposed to this, but i think if we can add that magic back to the PPVs; both for characters and RPers, the quality of what we produce we increase ten-fold.

2) Start playing Deeper Rather Than Wider

I am not great at sports sayings, but what i am trying to get out is i think we have far too many characters, Some people have 10 or more characters. And one of the big issues here is that most of those characters don't get used, and they don't develop. Heck i have seen characters created for the sole purpose of facing one person, and then disappearing into thin air. We can't create a rich and detailed universe if there are too many people around to connect the dots. What i would propose, rather controversially, is to enforce character quotas. As a benchmark i would say it should be limited to 5 Friction and 3 Tension characters, and anyone who goes into both leagues counts as one on each side. By cutting the number of muses we have to take on, we can work on deepening and developing our muses more. It also has the added benefit of bringing users together as there will be less characters o go around an we will forced to talk to each other more. Which brings me to point 3:

3)We Need to Have Enforced Matchups
To help shake things up i think the mods, or whoever takes overall charge of developing the story of AFW; should be able to enforce that two character have a match together. This way, we can not only bring users together than normally would not RP together, but also it helps us create new relationships that we might not have thought about. Plus i think it would help with the more shier people on the board, who are too shy to contact people for threads as they are scared tier ideas might get turned down. I am not saying every single match has to be an enforce done, though i would suggest PPVs and important matches are.

4)Standardised Wrestler Profiles
This more my Autistic brain taking over, but i think it would be a good idea if we all standardised our profiles so that they all had the same content. I.e we have a template sheet that went Name,Age, etc. While most profiles do that already, each person has their own variation of something, and some of them even have Alignment sent as jobber, even though it isn't an alignment. I think it would give new players a good grounding into the expectations of what we expect, as well as making it easier to find opponents. The reason i say this is because i have been working on a SQL system that would catalogue all our wrestlers and give you a searchable index, making finding opponents more easier.

5)We need a ranking system, that isn't a ranking system
I am perfectly aware that people were not happy with the old top 10 system. But i do think we need a form of structure that aids progression. Now they way i would suggest we do this is to maybe have division within Friction - for example, Division A would contain the top 10 wrestler in the Friction brand - They would include the Friction Champ, The contender, and 8 other wrestlers in a undetermined order. These people would wrestle with each other in PPVs and headline events, and are pretty much the main faces of the brand. Beneath that you have division B, which has 20 wrestlers. These include your upper mid-carders who also appear on PPVs and Events, but not as often as Division A, and you will find, most Contenders for Title belts will live here. Division C contains 30 Wrestlers and includes our up-and-comers. People to look out for. There will be special PPVs just for Division C to help get them exposure (Think NXT), While they will rarely be in main brand events, they will on occasion make it out to some of the Bigger PPVs and Events to fill gaps. If there was enough room we could create a bigger Division D.

Everyone else will be Unranked, and will have to work up onto the ladder. Now, Your, wins and losses, do not dictate your position. Your development and your character do. If you have a well developed character, who has plenty of relationships and rivals and deep story arcs, you are going to be higher up that tree than someone who just goes around winning matches for no reason at all. While wins and losses are important to a degree, they are not the be all and end all, we want a system that promote good story telling, not good victories.

I do have a few other bits in my head but they are developed enough to share yet, but if they do form, i will also jot them down.

This is great and all but I don't think there is anything wrong with the site that needs deep improvement.

number 2 tho. We like making chars.

For me, it's a hard NO to your suggestions 2, 3, and 5.

I am in support of your #4, but I think a profile skeleton already exists. I know I found one when I first joined, but dont exactly recall where it is off the top of my head.

Also, you say 'we' a few times as if you're speaking on behalf of everyone and that there's already been consensus on the site's purpose, the way everyone likes/wants to participate, and our direction moving forward. There really hasn't been.

Edit: I'll provide a more detailed explanation behind my 'hard NO' when I get home. I hate typing on mobile.

Really, what's wrong with the site except for having no mods currently?

TL;DR Version: My personal opinion is that, while a couple of these ideas are good, I think others would cause more disagreement and more of a rift between players, as opposed to bringing them together. Plus, some of these ideas are basically forcing restrictions on people and their characters, and that could impact how people get along with each other and enjoy the board. Your ideas basically force everyone to conform to them, despite their own thoughts and opinions.

Long version:

I'm not going to touch most of those right now, but number three is a hard, hard NO.

If anyone tried to force me to have a match with someone I didn't want to (which has actually happened in the past and pissed me the hell off), then I would walk from the site and wouldn't even look back.

Now, to address the suggestions, they're all of the add more restrictions variety.

Which can be okay, restrictions help keep things in check after all. But the big draw of the site (for me) is that we can do pretty much whatever.

Number 4 I can sorta agree with, but inoted of standardizing the entire profile, just a standardized header is enough really, put basic info there and let everyone use whatever disgusting template/structure they want.

The rest of your points are bordering on micromanaging people and how they can play, which is a big no for me. Not everything has to be a story set up like it's WWE. People are here to let loose and RP (and masturbate, maybe)

Part of our success has been how open and free-form the site is. Adding in a bunch of arbitrary restrictions would hurt the hell out of us.

We already do number 1 as well.


Your creativity and desire to help is good but I dunno if the site is looking for this type of radical change. Its all rather restricting.

AFW is a guided anarchy

I would say that with Tat's departure from the board, a rift has been highlighted. Its not about veterans and newbies, or even the good and the bad RPers, but i think it has been highlighted that we are not ONE AFW; We are actually a group of small AFW universes that happen to co-exist. Now i know certain board members don't like it when this is bought up, but there are RPing circles on this board, and when you get into one it can be difficult to get out of them.

Imma touch on this after all.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, at all. Certain people enjoy RPing with certain other people. That's just the way it works. Whether it's because they have stories with that person, or they're really good friends with them, people are going to flock to people they like.

Should some of us try branching out of our circles more often? Sure, absolutely, but there's no way to ENFORCE people doing that without pissing them the hell off.