Advertisement Area in Start

[Sevencix 0]

hey hi hello

After communicating a bit with a representative from the moderators, I was informed that having a character morphed as a banner in the start zone wasn't allowed. Their argument for this was that it would be "persistent" advertisement, something you couldn't turn off like .eventann or .guildann, and would intrude on a chat space - as far as I can gather from the responses. This, of course, is valid. But this conversation made it clear to me that start as a zone feels pretty aimless for new players? New players are already overwhelmed, their access to new phases HAS to be described in 3-4 lines if they do .phase overview, they have to navigate a new Discord to find roleplay-ads, of which only a select few repeating ads are posted, or ask someone completely random, which many may not even do.

Of course, we can disagree on how valid this critique of the new player experience is, but I am rather confident that I am close to, if not pretty spot on about the whole ordeal. So with the above experiences in mind, I propose the following: Dedicate a corner of the start zone to advertisement. This could be in the way of phase forged information NPCs that you can talk to, that Epsilon staff can spawn in, my silly banner morph character or just simply standing around to scout for new players for a guild.

It shouldn't be close to the cluster we usually associate with the start zone community - it should be out of /say range, but it shouldn't also be in some FAR OFF corner. Additionally, there should be directions to make it easy to go to.

We have such a huge start area, so while it is fun to explore, I would also hope we could agree on its rather lost potential. I would also hope that we would come together to create an actual, tangible physical space you can approach as a new player, which has a bit more information or actual humans you can talk to to get you settled in. Hell, I'd argue if Builder's Haven is considered sanitized and important enough to the Epsilon experience, that having an advertisement area is just even more sensible.

I'd like to immediately confront a critique that was raised with the idea of letting advertisement characters roam free like a flood by the moderation representative: It'd be easier to moderate if current advertisement was kept to .phase overview and the roleplay-ads channel. To this, I say: Yep! Of course it would be. My argument against this though, is that as it stands, Epsilon feels incredibly isolated between phases, new players are overwhelmed pretty easily and many phases are struggling with keeping themselves running for more than a few months. I plain and simply say to this: It'd be worth it. I think we'll see a net gain from having some containment zone with clear indicators to its location. In addition, the start zone is already being monitored for problematic TRPs, or at the very least such is reportable in a ticket. To say that the area which you'd have to cast a net over may not be that much larger in the first place.

Please let me know if you have any critiques, suggestions or changes you'd make to this proposal. I can't wait to see if the Epsilon forums are still active!

[Erkor 119]

On 4/2/2024 at 11:03 AM, Sevencix said:

After communicating a bit with a representative from the moderators, I was informed that having a character morphed as a banner in the start zone wasn't allowed.

what???????????? i did this for dusk of dawn and nobody told me off

[Rogan 158]

i feel like there has been a breakdown of communication between moderators as i was able to advertise it

[Sevencix 0]

Oh. Would love staff clarification on this if possible, since I'd love to leave my silly banner guy in some corner ominously advertising.