Fandom Announcements!

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #1: Alright, guys! I've officially made a new OOC post for Announcements - obviously - and Player Schedules found here. Make use of it if you can! It could become a hugely useful tool for us.


In other news, I have promoted @sitanomoto as my first official co-Mod. Be nice.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #2: And, now that he is back, I have entrusted @LokiofSP with a different title: Character Advisor. This gentlemen, with his amazing rendition of his character Fredrick Todd, impressed me to such a degree that my picky-ass trusts him absolutely to help out with characters if he so wishes. I didn't exactly aaaask him if he wanted to do this, I just gave him the title and am making it an announcement anyway. Either way, I consider him an integral part of this team just as much as either Sita or I!

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #3: I have officially made the Gotham IC and actually started it! Right now, it's quite literally picking up from where the RP previously left off with Black Beetle and Fredrick Todd. There are no other obligations for superheroes, however, thus Nightwing can be retconned into Bludhaven. Because character creation is still highly intensive right now and the rosters are still being populated, I'm electing to keep the IC exclusive to this. What I'm displaying is a relative level of quality and quantity I'm looking for in IC posts and dialogue as well as some examples of previous events in the RP. Personally, I just wanted to do SOMETHING.


In other news, Anno is working on Star City which will be the hub for plenty of upcoming characters and Sita is fleshing out Bludhaven, known as the sister city to Gotham in the North. This are gradual processes, but general updates nonetheless!

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Thanksgiving Break!
​

Alright, guys! It's Turkey Day and is arguably one of the most mobile parts of the year with statistically the most travel (last I checked, at least.) Now, I'm a fair guy and I fully understand the season. While I know many of us might get some breaks, I also know many of us won't - and if we do, it will likely be literally only long enough to spend it with family if we so choose to do so. That said, I'm relaxing the posting expectations until the first of December! You may continue to post, and personally, I haven't had to nag anyone to post (aside from dear Mr. @AnnoDomini), so I doubt this will be a big deal for me. But, what I want to communicate across the board is to every member of the roleplay: expect a potential decrease in posts. It's fine. It's not breaking posting schedules. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but please, enjoy your holidays! If you are honestly concerned with post upkeep, politely PM those directly involved with your character(s) and they may share their plans to give you a rough idea of how active things will be. 

I just wanted to address this upfront! Things may slow down, but there are plenty of people committed to this roleplay and its livelihood. The holidays are one of the most difficult obstacles for long-term roleplays to overcome! So, let's face it head on and make that milestone, guys.

- Sir Les Paul

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #4: I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving! If you're out Black Friday shopping, stay safe! I'm still personally swamped, but I wanted to take the time to remind everyone (for a second time) to enjoy their holiday festivities!


Oh, and the creation of a new role. While I do have Character Advisers and Co-Mods made up, I didn't have a title for someone whom just ran a City. Our @AnnoDomini is one such individual that runs Star City and its group and works on plenty of PM's with me to keep things running smoothly for you guys. In honor of Thanksgiving, I'm giving thanks to the members that run their own cities (sitanomoto and AnnoDomini) by creating yet another title: Mayor. Unlike Co-Mods, Mayors don't necessarily need to worry about the whole RP; just their section of it. Unlike character advisers, mayors are meant to work most closely on the plotline and with the characters involved in their City. The role is different, the role is important and I felt it needed acknowledged in some way.


So, thank you to Anno and thank you to all the members of my team that help make this roleplay possible!

Give Sita, Loki and Anno a thanks, guys!

- Sir Les Paul
​

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #5: It has been around a while for veterans, but I felt it was best to finally present it to the general public! Beta Protocol has its own Discord channel. A link set to never expire has been added to the first post of the OOC and additionally will be added here! Enjoy!

Click Here
​

 

[Sir Les Paul]

[SIZE=28.0pt]One Month Anniversary![/SIZE]
​

 
​

One month ago, Beta Protocol was founded. On November 6th, 2016, the fruition of the persistence of others brought me to rebooting this roleplay and expanding even further on the universe. In just thirty days, we've come a long way! We have plenty of new roleplayers and some veterans of the first few iterations. Needless to say, there is no lack of friendship or cohesion in the community behind this roleplay. To commemorate this occasion, I'm going to waste time I could totally be writing responses to congratulate everyone and really emphasize just how far we have come!

First and foremost, I want to give a shout out to all of our returning veterans! @LokiofSP @NecroKnight @Crono @The Regal Rper @Demonhunter @sitanomoto @AceofRoses @AnnoDomini @Pyosimros (even though they chose not to rejoin) and @Archon (simply because I know you were in the community long before I). You guys make the foundation for this fleshed out world we've built. The skeleton that I have woven so intricately the story of this roleplay. Quite literally, without you guys, we wouldn't have made it this far!

But, let's not leave out our new roleplayers! @Bone2pick @Sopranos @Hell-Jumper @ChazGhost @Epiphany You guys have added a lot to our roster and have filled out roles that can only add to the story and world we are making! Someday, you'll be listed with the veterans and hopefully a whole new round of roleplayers will be right here looking up to you guys as the people that helped build the roleplay they all adore.

Oh, and why not shout-out those silent observers? @Apex @JPTheWarrior @NostalgiaOwl @Midnite @KaiaWolf @Brook While you guys are either teetering to join, just reading for your own enjoyment or even if you just forgot you even requested you join, you're pretty rad, too!


With the pats on the back out of the way, I want to toss out some stats! Prior to this post, this Beta Protocol has accumulated a whooping 451 contributions! That means, on average, we make about 15 posts per day! That's a fairly impressive posting rate, if I might say so myself.

But, I don't just look at overall contributions. I take it a step further, folks. Of the 451 posts, I consider 245 of them to be real IC posts (mostly all the cities and character sheets). That means right about 54% of all of the posts in the RP are IC; a 1:1 ratio. That's pretty damn good. Not only that, we average a good 8 IC posts per day! That's nearly everyone actively in the RP posting at least once! 

Now, I don't know about you guys, but I consider this a damn fine accomplishment for just a month. And, everything is on great track! The storylines are flowing smoothly, transitions are looking great and the first part of the RP is nearing its conclusion! Right after that, the real fun begins.

The mayors, Anno, Sita and I, get to plot for our cities all building up to future events and interactions. We're getting far past just introductions and into real depth here.


Now, this isn't to say that this pace will last! The holidays are rolling around and I think we did an amazing job at returning to pace after Thanksgiving. Absolutely wonderful; trust me, I was watching the post rates (as you can tell). This announcement is also a reminder that arguably the single roughest time for all roleplay is coming up: late December. A dozen different potential holidays, an almost assured family visit, all right before finals or the generally-heavy load of work before any type of break. And, while most of us get break, it's a time to be spent with our family, friends and loved ones. While some of us will still find time online, others won't. 

And, that's okay. We made it through Thanksgiving absolutely fine and we have a community of founders in addition to some wonderful team players that I have worked with on developing intense characters and interesting plotlines. This roleplay might slow down, but that's expected. While I'm not relaxing posting yet, I am telling you now that from the dates of December 17th to January 3rd (that's two days to sober up for anyone that's wild), I will abolish posting regulations just like I did for Thanksgiving. It worked then and because it did, I have absolute confidence in an extended break for the December holidays. This doesn't mean you can't post, obviously; for all I know, most of you might even post faster than me (not difficult, honestly; I spend more time plotting than posting).

All in all, this has been a fantastic experience thus far and I wanted to take the time to thank each and every one of you for helping this vision become a reality.

-Sir Les Paul
​

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #6: As per popular demand, I have disabled the Nyte Life override for the RP theme. I'm still using it, I still format for it, but you may now browse to your leisure in default, color me, etc..

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #7: I have moved the Battle of Alcatraz post to archives and added A Guide to the League! It has a lot more detail about the RP as a whole, it's pretty formal, a character creation walkthrough, and has a set of standard equipment and training each member of the League should have. This should interest just about everyone and make it just a little bit easier for newcomers to figure out just what to do. If anyone has any input, suggestions or ideas to add, edit or maybe critique, PM me! The entire goal was to give a better outline of the RP and make it more friendly for others.

Check it out here.
​

 

[Sir Les Paul]

[COLOR= rgb(0, 255, 255)]One Thousand Contribution milestone![/COLOR]
​

I may be the only person watching things like these, but breaking one thousand contributions is something I think is worth a little recognition! Not every RP on the site breaks the four-digit barrier, so I do believe it's time to take a moment and reflect back on things. 


So, just what has Beta Protocol done on the road to breaking 1,000 contributions? Well, we've established three cities with active, inner communities, gained players, lost players and started down the road of development for characters! We survived the slowed posting during the holidays, we pushed through dreaded finals, we've made it past the oh-so unfortunately short breaks from work and we've consistently returned to ideal posting schedules! We have hit just about every roadblock that most roleplays do in their first few months and we're still here! Thriving as ever, active as ever.


Now, back in the one-month anniversary, I posted some statistics. During the New Years, I also made a Resolution post. I think it's about time we see just what has changed since then.


Right off the bat, none other than the co-Mod, @sitanomoto, took the one-thousandth contribution spot (while I was napping, might I add) with a post from Jessica and Becky in Blüdhaven, which can be found here. But, that doesn't really tell us too much, now does it? Let's look at the top posters by post for the RP:


#1 Spot: Sir Les Paul at 274 posts (prior to this post, go figure)


#2 Spot: @NecroKnight at 110 posts


#3 is a tie between @AnnoDomini and Sita at 72 posts


#4 Spot goes to @The Regal Rper with 70 posts


#5 Spot goes to @Rui with 62 posts


Alright, so the GM has a quarter of the posts... what do you expect? Needless to say, just about everyone else is in a pretty close running floating at around fifty posts each!


Now, at one-month, we had 451 posts with 245 of them being IC posts. That put the RP at about 54% IC. At 78 days, just two weeks shy of our three month mark, we're now at 1,000 posts with 608 IC posts! That puts us just shy of 61% IC! That means our IC activity has shifted up since our 30 day mark! But, those aren't all the stats I provided last time, were they? If we calculate the total posts per day (and roundup slightly), Beta Protocol has on average 14 posts per day! How many of those are IC? Well, it comes out to 8.4, so roughly the same. What this means is that despite the holidays, we have kept up a consistent posting speed for well over a month since our last check in and have continued to grow!


So, we have stats, we have what we've overcome, but what really has happened in this RP? Well, the movement of the anti-hero squad to Gotham finally happened and set the pace for the plot in two cities. Star City has been attacked not once, but twice; Deathstroke has made claim to the home town of Team Arrow and a new figure is posing a threat, seemingly having killed Agent Hope and the alien asset, Kal'Aya. Now, we know it's all a test, but it is nonetheless fraying ends for the remainder of Team Arrow; not to mention, the mental breakdown of Miss Hope herself. At this same time, the fan favorite Scyleia Lancaster is proving to be an effect, if not at times frustrating, teammate for the third Question while they try to unravel the mysterious appearance and wake of chaos left by NoOne and NeoShade in their brief time in the frigid, sister city of Gotham. Aside from the anti-heroes grouping together in Gotham, the hero duo of Owl and Condor have found themselves in an interesting interaction with an immortal while an Atlantean scours through the city for missing treasure. 


Needless to say, there is no lack of activity. Almost every character has begun having their impact on this world and the world is definitely having its impact on them.


What will happen in the next thousand posts for Beta Protocol? Well, you guys will just have to keep RP'ing to find out!


[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR]@LokiofSP[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR]@Crono[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR]@Demonhunter[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR]@AceofRoses[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR]@Archon @Sopranos[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR]@Hell-Jumper[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR]@ChazGhost[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR]@Epiphany[COLOR= rgb(152, 157, 160)] [/COLOR] @Jefferson @GinkyGotBack

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #8: A change to the staff has occurred. Epiphany has became the new Mayor of Bludhaven, working in tandem with sitanomoto. A co-Mod position is no longer open to the RP. Additionally, I have changed the roleplay from Open needing Approval to Invite Only. Anyone currently working on a character is still absolutely welcome. However, I have found the roleplay consistently growing has came into conflict with smoothing out the IC. Right now, the mission for Beta Protocol as a roleplay is to work on increasing the quality and consistency of the IC. I believe the best way to do that is effectively for the roleplay to remain closed and for us as a whole to work together to make the story progress. That is what this recent update is entirely about. Thank you for your time and cooperation.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #9: I have updated A Guide to the League to provide a section for Posting Standards and Guidelines. This includes a requested outline for proper Collaboration posting techniques, a few helpful tips and some tl:dr's for anyone not interested in the tips.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #10: : Public Service Announcement here. As we should all know (due to the universal private messages), the site will undergo the transition back to BBCode (which I welcome) and subsequently be restructured. To my knowledge and as answered by others, Beta Protocol should be honored as an HP. Every major post will likely need to be recoded. If you recall in the beginning, I actually kept virtually all coding simple because I thought an HTML update was in the works. It wasn't, but that simplicity plays in our favor as the entire RP and even character sheets should not be difficult to fix. While the first site change marked the doom of United We Stand, I can assure you that this one will just be another roadbump of success on our long journey. In addition to that, I personally am far more comfortable with BBCode than I am HTML, so the roleplay will likely become more aesthetically pleasing after the transition and I have time to play with the new/old functions.

Long story short, nothing to worry about, folks. On a sidenote, I'm feeling considerably better as evidenced by my return to posting. Thank you all for your concern.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #11: I have added two new Events to the Events section of the Guide found here. Called Twilight Hour and White Light Redemption, they are the methods I have used to deal with the White Lanterns (and entire Lantern arcs for that matter) as well as the Spectre.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #12: With the absence of Epiphany, I am putting Bludhaven on indefinite hiatus. Do not fret, I do have various plans. First and foremost, I am going to present my options:

#1. Wait for Epiphany to return. Simple enough, but let me tell you the plan anyway. Because of the stagnation of the city and the need to catch everything up, the city will be rebooted with a time skip anyway. This time skip will allow for all those characters in standby now to be brought in effectively and those already in action to smoothly return to action.

#2. Much like Star City, I could shut down Bludhaven all together. While I don't like doing this, it is an option, but it leaves many out in the rain. This leaves me with my final option.

#3. Transition those in Bludhaven to my more vacant Gotham. The plan was to transition Tim and Alphus to Bludhaven, in this event, we are simply changing whom moves where. There are some characters intended to be in Bludhaven, however, so this isn't as ideal, either.​

This will be an open discussion the players in the OOC. If you have an alternative, toss it out there. If you would feel better PM'ing me, please do so.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #13: I have officially completed the Titans Initiative Outline and Interest Check! Things are getting real. The list looks a little like this:

- Update San Francisco and the Titans Tower
- Create a stickied post related to the Titans Initiative based off the Guide to the League, but tailored to the new direction of the RP
- Potential Coding update (I've gotten better with coding, but this is lower priority)
- Create an Interest Check for new prospective players
- Create new team(s) or alter existing ones to best fit new applicants
- Work-in existing characters as possible (literally, anyone not active right now: PM me and I we can work on getting you back in if possible)

The two big tasks down! After coding the new posts, I'm not for sure if I should do a full recode. What I will likely do is start a poll later and see if you guys think what we have for old stuff is fine or if a fresh new look would help out!

Better news, with the big two items down, the next will be helping make the flow in of new characters and teams. This means it's the step where I work one-on-one with you guys to make characters fit in and anyone with older characters can always get in contact with me to see what's going on.

Aimed specifically at Sopranos, Shadowbroker and sitanomoto, this is the fleshed out chance I was talking about to really get back into things.

Archon got in touch, he's busy, but he still exists! Great news.

As for updating the Titans Tower/San Francisco, that will come as well. I'll work with Regal on that no doubt. He's a busy guy, too, and runs an RP that I guess I help manage (he says I do sometimes, I say I just make things interesting) so we work together a lot!

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #14: Polls added for Active Plots Thread and Coding Revision.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Update #15: I've officially redirected Hero Points to the Archives for now in favor of focusing more on an open-plotting/narrative story. Reason behind it, every time I get close to doing an update, I find life getting in the way. I realize now it's March and I've missed two months of updating when it's supposed to be weekly. I don't feel like I can manage it alone and maintain the bare minimum quality I expect of myself, so I'm not going to teeter you guys on it longer. I personally find this unfortunate because I put a lot of work into them at the time, but since, haven't been able to consistently implement them.