I am enjoying my time on the site, but I'd like to suggest a few ideas to help with the boost of activity and other things. That's why I am putting four suggestions below one for the Marketplace, one for Missions, next regarding topics and the last an idea to help draw in new members.
For the marketplace, I wanted to suggest the idea of placing sealing equipment in it. Ink to be used to draw seals brushes to draw said seals, blank sealing paper for seals to be drawn onto and blank scrolls. As some seals in the series used paper tags and even cloth to perform various styles of Fuuinjutsu.
Example.
Then to have a seal engraved onto a paper tag, scroll or onto cloth a training topic would be required following the training guidelines. While to engrave tattoos onto skin without certain techniques would require the Sealing Ink Pen.
The second is other forms of shinobi gear (mainly from the games) that could be village exclusive.
From what I see the sites still fairly new and theirs not a lot of missions around either, and to request one you have to message the Kage to get approved to take it, who then crosses it off the list. But this doesn't always get updates as everyone is busy. I'd like to propose the idea that each village gets its own board under the missions topic and each mission placed in its own thread.
From there once a month someone can post in said thread asking to take the mission and post in staff requests. There the staff or Kage to post in approving for the person to take it, then the topic itself is locked so no one else can take it for the month.
Next suggestion for missions is for the creation of more. Not sure if members themselves can make them and just message a staff since a template is listed, but perhaps have a topic under missions or even the suggestion thread "Mission Creation" where members can post missions they've created which can then be used or even modified for the site but the staff. This would increase the current number of missions allowing for a rise in activity.
You could even restrict mission making to D to B rank missions only, that staff make A and up.
If you decide to roll with this, even considering adding an incentive for members to make missions like 500 ryo for a D, 750 ryo for a C and a 1000 ryo for a B. When people get rewarded for their work they tend to work harder and will happily do your work for you. This way when Gladius gets more members staff won't be rushing around needing to make more missions to accommodate. That and with more missions around, members can earn Ryo faster.
My third suggestion is to do with the topic count and flashback topics. I know gladius uses a Real-Time system and flashback topics, but in my experience, this can be confusing and tends to slow activity down. I'd like to propose the use of a multi-topic system.
Allow members to partake in multi topics at the same time, say 3 topics at once. 2 of those being Social Topics and the other being either a Training or Mission Topic or Crafting at the same time. The social topics wouldn't follow the real-time system, neither the training or missions, where the crafting topics would. Training, Mission and Crafting would come under one set of topics, if your crafting then you can't do a mission or do any training, same if your training you can't make a crafting or mission topic, vice versa with a mission topic. This would help to increase activity on Gladius to make the site more active and inviting, as it will allow members to, hopefully, be constantly threading whether it's just a plain old social or training.
When it comes to combat threads that involve maiming or killing these would come after any other topic and would be placed in the timeline that it happened afterwards. And once a maiming or killing topic starts the persons involved can't make anymore topics until it is concluded.
As for a travel topic, one would have to exit all previous topics before being allowed to travel.
This is mainly an idea to assist in getting people to join and help to build up the villages as currently only Kumo and Kiri appear to be the most active while the other's are falling a little behind. Perhaps create an incentive for new members when they join? With the incentive changing depending on the village they join.
Incentive Example
If you want to make sure they stay the incentive can be gained either after being active for 1 week and have made at least 10 in character posts or after they've made 30 In Character Posts and roleplayed with 1 other person within a month of being approved. That way the incentive is earned based on activity.
Market Place
For the marketplace, I wanted to suggest the idea of placing sealing equipment in it. Ink to be used to draw seals brushes to draw said seals, blank sealing paper for seals to be drawn onto and blank scrolls. As some seals in the series used paper tags and even cloth to perform various styles of Fuuinjutsu.
Example.
- Ink Pot 25mls | ?ryo each
- Ink Pot 50mls | ?ryo each
- Ink Pot 100mls | ?ryo each
- Ink Brush | ?ryo each
- Sealing Cloth | |?ryo per 15 feet.
- Blank Sealing Paper: Single Square (Measurements here): | ?ryo each
- Small Blank Scroll | ?ryo each
- Medium Blank Scroll | ?ryo each
- Large Blank Scroll | ?ryo each
- Sealing Ink Pen(For tattooing seals into skin) | ?ryo
- Sealing Gourd | ?ryo
- Sealing Barrel | ?ryo
Then to have a seal engraved onto a paper tag, scroll or onto cloth a training topic would be required following the training guidelines. While to engrave tattoos onto skin without certain techniques would require the Sealing Ink Pen.
The second is other forms of shinobi gear (mainly from the games) that could be village exclusive.
- Electric Kunai (A kunai with a seal that when chakra is channelled into it produces electricity) Kumo Exclusive
- Fire Kunai (An explosive kunai with five-foot blast radius) Iwa Exclusive
- Multi-Way Shuriken (A slightly larger shuriken that when thrown splits apart into 5) Kiri Exclusive
- Three Way Fire Bomb (A palm-sized bomb that when thrown pops open and three smaller bombs fall out each detonating with a 3-foot radius explosion) Suna Exclusive
- Five-Way Kunai (A Kunai with a seal in place that holds four other kunai, when thrown four pop out and five are thrown together) [Four pre-sealed Kunai included] Konoha Exclusive
Missions
From what I see the sites still fairly new and theirs not a lot of missions around either, and to request one you have to message the Kage to get approved to take it, who then crosses it off the list. But this doesn't always get updates as everyone is busy. I'd like to propose the idea that each village gets its own board under the missions topic and each mission placed in its own thread.
From there once a month someone can post in said thread asking to take the mission and post in staff requests. There the staff or Kage to post in approving for the person to take it, then the topic itself is locked so no one else can take it for the month.
Next suggestion for missions is for the creation of more. Not sure if members themselves can make them and just message a staff since a template is listed, but perhaps have a topic under missions or even the suggestion thread "Mission Creation" where members can post missions they've created which can then be used or even modified for the site but the staff. This would increase the current number of missions allowing for a rise in activity.
You could even restrict mission making to D to B rank missions only, that staff make A and up.
If you decide to roll with this, even considering adding an incentive for members to make missions like 500 ryo for a D, 750 ryo for a C and a 1000 ryo for a B. When people get rewarded for their work they tend to work harder and will happily do your work for you. This way when Gladius gets more members staff won't be rushing around needing to make more missions to accommodate. That and with more missions around, members can earn Ryo faster.
Topics
My third suggestion is to do with the topic count and flashback topics. I know gladius uses a Real-Time system and flashback topics, but in my experience, this can be confusing and tends to slow activity down. I'd like to propose the use of a multi-topic system.
Allow members to partake in multi topics at the same time, say 3 topics at once. 2 of those being Social Topics and the other being either a Training or Mission Topic or Crafting at the same time. The social topics wouldn't follow the real-time system, neither the training or missions, where the crafting topics would. Training, Mission and Crafting would come under one set of topics, if your crafting then you can't do a mission or do any training, same if your training you can't make a crafting or mission topic, vice versa with a mission topic. This would help to increase activity on Gladius to make the site more active and inviting, as it will allow members to, hopefully, be constantly threading whether it's just a plain old social or training.
When it comes to combat threads that involve maiming or killing these would come after any other topic and would be placed in the timeline that it happened afterwards. And once a maiming or killing topic starts the persons involved can't make anymore topics until it is concluded.
As for a travel topic, one would have to exit all previous topics before being allowed to travel.
Incentive
This is mainly an idea to assist in getting people to join and help to build up the villages as currently only Kumo and Kiri appear to be the most active while the other's are falling a little behind. Perhaps create an incentive for new members when they join? With the incentive changing depending on the village they join.
Incentive Example
- 10,000 Ryo free
- 10 Kunai Free
- 1 Free Item Pouch
- Village Incentive (Konoha 1 extra free D rank Jutsu, Iwa Free D rank Armour, 1 Free D rank Weapon, Kiri 1 Free D rank Chemist Item, Suna 1 Free D Rank Puppet)
If you want to make sure they stay the incentive can be gained either after being active for 1 week and have made at least 10 in character posts or after they've made 30 In Character Posts and roleplayed with 1 other person within a month of being approved. That way the incentive is earned based on activity.
