Yo'za!

Okie-dokez! Hodge-podge post!
Holidays are (almost?) over and I think I've set up DP stuff as comfortably as I can without going too far into it (and other little things).

So now it's time to check in and get a count to see who's still "here" and who among you still has interest in generally RP-ing here (outside of major plots/arcs) before I redo the signups for the arc again.

Post in this thread and let me know that:
A.) you can generally roleplay here, as is (but would prefer to have more active members to RP with) [AKA: start the signups; worry about advertising later]
OR
B.) you can generally roleplay here, but only with more active members. [AKA: Advertise first before starting the arc signups]


As you can see, this will affect how I go about advertising and seeing about bringing in others.

I should state that, however: I don't want to bring people in with the allure of jumping right into a plot/arc; I don't want them having the expectation of frequent plots/arcs and essentially only RP-ing when a plot/arc is involved.
I want the kind of people who will roleplay just to roleplay, or RP to tell their own storied tales or help others with their own - with plots/arcs being a nice extra for them, whether staff- or community-made.
But, as you can imagine, if nothing's going on - not even general RPs - they aren't likely to think about sticking around unless the active community gives them that vibe.
So, I'm thinking: we do the arc with those who are here and active and then advertise when it's almost done (letting people trickle in, in-between), -OR- advertise now to help get general RPs going and do the arc later.
I assume the former?

---

---

With that out of the way, just a few things I want to mention.

1.)
I don't think anyone needs me to say this, but just in case it does need saying, here it is:
Community Tournaments are indeed welcome (and open)!
Any member who wants to host one can do so - no prerequisites required.
The community will be the ones to judge whether or not a user is credible enough to host a tournament - or if they wish to give them a chance at it.
I added a forum specifically for it, if you want to keep the records of them and stuff.
When hosting, be sure to keep the progress and results updated.
When completed, the thread will be moved to the Previous Tourneys section for record-keeping.

2.)
I'm creating a pseudo-ish(?) "Student Leaderboard" of sorts.
Nothing fancy. Just noting the dueling-est of duelists!
Could be used as a measure of how well the student is doing in school, overall, in comparison to others - among other things.
Not meant to accurately gauge anything specific. Still deciding when to officially start it so it syncs well against other things.
You gain score points when you complete an RP duel (of any type).
Students' scores will be updated as they complete their threads.
Every 6 IRL months, the top 3 player characters gain 5000, 3000, or 2000 DP, respectively, that can be spread across the user's character accounts as they wish.
The student player character that achieves THE top rank will canonically(IC) be the top student duelist in the academy at that time, listed on a digital board somewhere in the academy, as well as noted OOC-wise on the site, including the Time Frame during which it occurred.
(W:D:L = 3:2:1[points])
Points are reset after each prize interval.
3 NPCs will set the bar, each prize interval.

3.)
I modified Limit Duels to be a bit less convoluted in its rules. Check it out if you're interested at all.
I also added DP options to go with the changes. See the DP Spending thread for those details.

4.)
I'm going to rearrange the posts in "The Setting" thread sometime in the future.
It would already be done right now, but as I neared finishing edits for the first post, my browser decided to reset (close and re-open automatically), so I lost the changes, and that soured my mood since I knew I wouldn't remember every change I made. So I'll work on it some other time.

5.) ...I could swear there's a "5," but brain's dead, right now....