Hello Daisy! this is Mars. I just wanted to let you know that even though I wasn't here these past few months, I am sad to see the Hampton's go. It was crazy fun the time that I was here, and it's heartbreaking to see it go. I would sometimes come and check on you guys, (on the main) to see how everything was going with you guys. You're great. xx
Hi Mars, it’s good to hear from you again!
It’s extremely heart-breaking for us as well and like we said, maybe it’s a break and we will return with full-strength.. but for now, we sadly could’t see things getting better.
Thank you for your kind words, for lurking and now I can honestly say that you were the best Kimberly we ever had during this almost 2 years open and that you are a great roleplayer my dear.
As I said, I didn't want to be rude, but going back to Advertising. Today I spent 5 hours going through popular tags, looking for this particular roleplay. I found it once and that was only because someone was reopened. I go through those tags almost every day and TH never shows up. That's why I mentioned advertising.
That is completely normal, if you had spent that time on Saturday, you would have had a different perspective considering our promotions stopped Saturday night when the final decision was made based on all the points we have explained. Also, certain FC tags that move a little more slowly still have evidence of these promo-posts, so it depends on when and where you're looking, exactly.
Like Admin X said, it’s a case of ‘don’t make assumptions' and I couldn't have replied to you better than my friend did. We explored every option, we tried until the very last minute, and in that case my dear, I will repeat it 'you are absolutely mistaken' because we did not only promote on our promo-blog but also through several RPHs and RP-Ads Blogs.
I don't want this to come across as rude, but I do have some issues with the way you've decided to close down. For one: timezones are a thing, and it is hard for people to all come on at the same time. Two: Later in the week people might have things going on, there are some active days and some not. Three: You complained that you got no new RPers, yet you did not ADVERTISE your RP once. How are people supposed to know you're here?
Hi!First off, thank you for sending us a message. Now let me try and address your concerns (under the cut, because the reply got a little long):
Timezones. We know all too well that timezones are a ‘thing’, dear anon, especially considering admin Daisy is in an uncommon time-zone herself and often has to factor that in to many of her decisions and roleplay-related functions. In its nearly-two year run, TH has had numerous RPers, many of whom have not been in the same timezone as either of us admins. So that is something we completely understand. When we say there were times of inactivity, we meant hours-worth of inactivity, despite the fact that there are people in timezones compatible with those hours, and where there was a reasonable expectation of activity.
"Later in the week people might have things going on" - That is all well and good, anon, and also something we completely understand. When a roleplay has been around for nearly two years, believe me, there is very little we DON’T understand in terms of RPer needs, activity-levels and real-life expectations. But this isn’t just a few odd days of lessened activity. If you have been keeping up-to-date with our recent postings here on the main, we have stated repeatedly that there has been a consistent decrease of activity over the past few months. The truth is, it’s been several weeks now that TH has not been as active as we would like, not just a few days per week.
New Rpers/Advertising - Yes, we got a few new rpers and were very grateful for them. However, as you saw yourself, two of those roleplayers were unable to continue right off the bat. For us, that was yet another sign that activity levels won’t be increasing as much as we hoped. Because even if a few people are loyal with their activity, when you only have a tiny amount of roleplayers in a group, the activity is naturally low. There aren’t enough people to roleplay with, there isn’t enough branching out and creativity in terms of plots, etc. And TH was specifically made to be a big, encompassing group. Much of our supernatural themes work better that way, especially considering the Divisions in town and town-wide events involving members from many species. Two-three regular roleplayers simply aren’t enough. And so we hoped for new people, but didn’t get quite the numbers or the attention we were looking for.
When you speak about advertising though, I hope you don’t mind me saying you are absolutely mistaken. If you are a former roleplayer and have never done any rp-admining yourself, you may not understand just how much advertising and promoting we did in the past few weeks in order to bring attention to our group. But all you have to do is scroll through certain rp-related tags (group RPs, supernatural roleplays, actor/FC tags, etc) and you would see just how much we have advertised in the past while. Not to mention the fact that we don’t do promos or advertising on the Main, since it would spam everyone’s dash and get very messy. Instead, we have specific side-blogs created through which we promo the roleplay quite frequently as well as reaching out to RPHs for external advertising. So this becomes a case of ‘don’t make assumptions’. I hope you don’t mind my being a little strict here, but please understand that it can be a little insulting to be accused of not trying something simply because the person saying so isn’t aware that we most certainly did. As admins, we feel more for this roleplay than anyone else. It is Daisy’s brain-child project, and a creation we have both striven long and hard to uphold. So believe me, we have tried, and that is not something that should be dismissed by anyone who isn’t intimately aware of our side of the story.
It may ‘look’ like we are throwing in the towel. What might be difficult to understand from your perspective however, is that we’ve stuck around this rp for many, many months and so we know very well what signs to look for when it comes to activity or to predicting the future of an RP. This group has had very active periods and periods of low activity and we have been able to get through all of them in the past. This time however, was different. The ‘low period’ lasted several weeks to a few months (ever since early autumn) - and with our experience as admins, we know very well the signs when something might not be salvageable. Clearly, for us to make such a difficult decision this time, something was seriously different from all the other previous periods of low activity. But that ‘something’ is much easier to understand when you are looking at the whole picture through an administrator’s lens.
Let me end by reminding you and everyone else who may be reading this, that although we have closed the roleplay, that is not to say the shut-down is permanent. If interest is indicated by enough people (old and new), and we see evidence that we had enough potential activity to make things work - we may consider renewing the roleplay. So keep your fingers crossed anon, and spread the word to any others who might want for TH to reopen, if you’d like that.
I hope this answers your questions. If you have any others, please feel free to let us know so long as they are respectfully stated. No worries though, we have not taken offense to this message. After-all, it seems to come out of concern and interest in this rp, for which we are always grateful! ~ Admin X
On Thursday, January 29th, an important message was given to our roleplayers about the current (in)activity issue that TH was facing. The roleplay was given a little over a week for things to change, and for the first few days, things were looking good: we had good feedback, we saw more people on the dash and we had four new roleplayers join the group...
However, today is Sunday, February 8th 2015 - the day of our deadline, and our goal has not been fully realized.
Although the first 3-4 days were decent, the end of the week provided a steady decline reminiscent of the pattern of low activity we have been experiencing lately, despite all the members who are still around. There were even spans of a few hours where only one person would be online. Today's activity check only seemed to confirm these concerns. Even if people are still roleplaying on the dash, it isn't enough to maintain the group dynamic we were so proud of here at TH. And as was said on every activity check in the past, "activity is more than coming online every two-three days just to do a round of replies before leaving again, simply to secure your role" (Thursday, Jan. 29th).
Beyond roleplaying on the dash though, the lack of activity made administrative duties more difficult for us, since we received very little feedback from our rpers regarding the changes being made to TH. This made the task less motivating for us in terms of knowing whether the revamp (graphics overhaul, reposts, etc.) was even worth it.
After almost two years and many great memories along the way, it is with heavy hearts that we now announce: The Hamptons Supernatural RolePlay is officially closed... Maybe this is just a 'see you later', but for now, we will be dismantling.
To our current roleplayers: Those of you who have had your roles for a long time and have formed attachments to your characters: If you wish to keep them, please contact me to let me know - Don't just rip off a character or the roleplay in order to continue. As many of these are my characters, I reserve the right to know if you plan on continuing with them. I'll gladly let you keep them as indies (I'll remain with Sofia as an indie-rper myself), but just please come and speak with me first.
Daisy's Contacts: These accounts are always available for anyone who wishes to get in touch with me:
Through TH: thehamptons-rp.tumblr.com/ask
Through Sofia: makeawishsofia.tumblr.com/ask
Through My Personal: dylenapt.tumblr.com/ask
It was a long journey and both myself and Admin X are sad to see it come to an end for now. Still, we wish you all the very best and thank you all sincerely for the pleasure and the honour of roleplaying with each and every one of you. You are an amazing group of roleplayers and writers, and your portrayal of the characters were often better than I could ever have envisioned.
A huge modification is now complete and our city tour page is fresh new with a few new spaces and the list of all the workers in it to be easier for you to know your co-workers.
We are aware that the College Houses' Page isn't up yet, but it will as soon as possible. We are also aware that if a role is missing in any workers' list, it will be added once the character graphics and layouts change and get re-posted.
The navigation is here and for Most Wanted Characters of February, chosen from a vote list of our roleplayers, we got:
Derek Vanderville (Colton Haynes FC)
Nathaniel Royce (Chace Crawford FC)
Wyatt McCoy (Robbie Amell FC)
That are the Top 3 chosen from our roleplayers, for a list of 12 MWC made by the admin, you can find it on our slidenavi, mixing male and female roles.
To match their opposite, SAEDS, the Fringe Division page was revamped and added a small section of the citizens they are 100% aware of what they are, while the rest have files in their names, a few suspicious but no concrete proofs... yet.
I honestly never really enjoyed answering the rare times this question has been made to us and specially now that sadly during the past few days I’ve talked with others admins and the situation is quite similar sadly, where roleplays seem to be driven by the main and not by the characters, where people are only active is the main page is constantly posting or the admin is online and when that doesn't happen, the roleplay starts dying.
Moreless 4 months ago, this was part of what I wrote and would re-write here:
About this question, it always gets me shivering for the worst reasons: This isn’t a question for us but for our roleplayers + the activity is made by the roleplayers. I’ve answered something quite similar the rare few times that this was asked to us; the best way to figure this out is joining and maintaining your character active, only that way a roleplay can be active, if people are dedicated to their roles.I’ll say just one thing different from the rare times this question has been made to us: We have been around for a long time. If it was a dead, or an uninteresting roleplay with not dedicated roleplayers, we surely wouldn’t have lasted this long
I'm not going to lie to you, these last weeks for us were hard and that's why we are passing throught a revamp in some aspects and this week was basically a test week - To see if outside roleplayers would join us (which happened and I couldn't be more thankful for that) and to see if our current members would return to a good activity to keep this roleplay open, otherwise, TH would shut down this next Sunday.
So far, I can tell you that the activity is growing slowly again and I'm glad isn't just two people filling the dash..but we do need more and we need more dedicated roleplayers to join us and the current ones to help us maintaining TH open and active.
A roleplay is made not just by the admins but by the roleplayers in it. Truly hope everyone has that in mind because there's still a few days until Sunday and it will break my heart to close TH after nearly 2 years of being actively here.
To you my dearest anon, I hope you take my honesty in consideration and that if you saw a character that interested you, you come applying and help us remaining actively here. I can assure you that you will be very welcomed in our group.
What an incredible surprise I just had when I saw that doverhillsrpg had the exact same photos, topics and places that we have on our THTour page. I could deal with them taking the tour page considering that I'm updating it and it will look completely different soon but what I can't deal with is that they also took our plot (original/ours: x ; stolen: x), our characters.
The characters you see in this link (x) are fruit of my creation, all of them, without taking a point or changing a single word. You can check all our characters here (x) and see that all the male roles doverhillsrpg has are ours.
It's sad to see that are still many people in our roleplay community that take other people's work without thinking about all the hours and time spent behind a single post, specially a character.