Something Hard to Swallow

[Koga]

Before I say anything, I know what youre all thinking. ^Thats what she said^.

But there is a point to this topic, so Ill just get right into it.

I hate to say it, but for the most part, I agreed with what Keiteki was saying. Dont get me wrong, this isnt going to evolve into what his topic had, where everyone is shooting curses and insults at everyone else and nothing logical is being tossed around in a debate which ultimately ends with another user gone from the site after pages upon pages of useless banter. Which brings me to something else I felt I need to say, that I loved every word Aki said in that topic, especially his final post. Not that its important, but I was greatly impressed by what you did.

However, this topic isnt about complimenting people, its about something hard to swallow. Criticism.

Now, dont get me wrong, I am a neutral member in all of this, the way in which Keiteki brought about this arguement was little more than depressing, but for all intents and purposes, it was kind of the catalyst I needed to bring this about, especially seeing as how it proved what I thought from the minute I got here, and now that the cat just leapt out of the bag, I suppose it would be an ideal time to try to help you guys here at NN to try and work around this OverPowering problem.

First thing, I feel I need to go over something rather important to everything I plan on describing, that many of you here seem to have misinterpreted. The word "Overpowering" or "Overpowered". There are a great number of you here who think certain things arent overpowered, so long as they are controlled sufficiently, such as a large topic of the last thread, Bijuu's. Since this is the first of the NN sites Ive been on, and the only one Ive ever seen of the three, I wont go and say every Bijuu has always been overpowered in some way or another, because that would make absolutely no sense at all. However, I think its safe to assume, since there are only nine Bijuu's, if youre only using the original nine, to choose from, which means they are going to be rather strong. And by what Mirage said, only one Bijuu was ever used in battle, and that was in one occurance, which therefore means they arent overpowered. This is where I draw the misinterpretation. Though something can be controlled to the point where its power isnt used in an inappropriate way, that doesnt make it any less powerful or threatening. Overpowering is just what it says. Something with too much power. I will grant that overpowering can be, to a degree, controlled through users with overpowered abilities and such being responsible with them. However, if any of you have read The Lord of the Flies, you would know that there are situations where anyone will do anything to survive. Insult, fight, kill, and more importantly to our discussion, break rules. Even if we have the most responsible, most mature, most intelligent people in the ownership of these incredibly overpowered abilities, there are circumstances where they will use them. If one of them was pushed into a corner, and their emotions were raging and they had no other way to escape, yet they truly found themselves unwilling to die and unwilling to lose, they would use it.

And in response to those of you who will respond saying "If we never use it, then it isnt overpowered", then Ill give you my response to that right now, before you even get the chance to start typing it. "Youre right, if you never use it, it isnt overpowered. Its useless and unnecessary to be approved in the first place."

Personally, I agree in the respect that people who are responsible and wise enough should be allowed more power than others. However, there are limits to what I just said. People who are responsible and wise should be able to, for themselves, decide when something is just too powerful and shouldnt even be made, and they should be rewarded by their maturity through becoming moderators or administrators, or even kages and s-rank ninja. Not through getting their genin another dagger with a built-in missle launcher and infinite health pack dispenser, not to mention that side bar he was going to put in, which is definitely going to run up some installation charges.

Which actually reminds me of yet another point of mine, the fact that there are people with many characters, all of which are rediculously powerful. Note that I said powerful and not overpowered, because there is indeed a difference. The Fourth Hokage was powerful. Pein is overpowered. I do remember there being a post somewhere saying that people would be allowed only one strong, high, s-ranked character, and after that, they had to only do genin, or low ninja from then on. However, I still see the staff members posting new characters every other day, many of which seem to be a bit stronger than genin, let alone the other users on the site who have just gotten here for the first time. Im not going to shoot names around or anything, since its kind of just a brief rememberance, but I do know that most of you staff members have multiple characters, to say the least. That, in itself, is slightly overpowered. You guys are all powerful and intimidating in the first place, with your original, real characters. I dont think you need to add to that fear instilled in new users by making thousands of accounts so they never know who or what theyre about to fight with. On top of that, I believe I have seen some overpowering in secondary characters as well, which is sort of amplified overpowering. Over-overpowering, if you will.

The reason Im shooting all of this up here is because I like this site, and everyone on it, Im very surprised to say. I dont want this site to fall under, like the other two have, as well as the other thousands of sites worldwide do every day. This is a good site, a bit rough around the edges, but its one of the best Naruto sites Ive seen in a long time. If you guys work on cutting those edges down, I think this diamond could push NarutoC aside someday. Keep in mind, there is a flipside to that. Dont fix those edges, and NarutoC will someday push this coal aside.

I want you all to take my word for it. I have been involved in roleplaying for years upon years, more than I honestly wish to have been. I tell you all this from experience. Brutal, vicious, enfuriating experience. I dont believe many of you know this, but I used to be a site owner, and the head administrator on that same site. I was the only actually responsible admin, and the only one who was ever on, so that meant it was me who had to do.. everything. Do not take that word lightly either. EVERYTHING. I wrote up every template, every rule, made every forum, the descriptions to every forum, I approved every character, spell, skill, summon, weapon, form, ship, location, I moderated the chat room, I answered every message, I reviewed every new post on the entire site every day. Everything. Every. Thing. On that site, there grew to be around 1200 members. Over 200,000-220,000 articles posted. And I was the owner of that amazing success of a site. Care to know what I did then? I left it. Care to know what happened not two weeks after I left it to the ownership of the other two administrators? It was hacked.

Please accept my criticism and advice, the amount of experience that was forced down my throat from that place is unbelievable. Literally tens of thousands of approvals are under my belt, and Id like my knowledge to assist you all in creating a great site here as well. Im only looking out for the best interest of the site, and Id really enjoy staying here for an extended amount of time.

Just to refresh everyones minds of what I was talking about before my abrupt trip down memory lane, its about overpowering. Im not saying the site is unfair, but me saying that nobody here is overpowered would not only be a rediculous understatement, itd be a 100%, cold, hard lie.

[Zen]

Hmm....well at least your topic has description in it unlike Keiteki's,but I see your point I have noticed that alot of people on here are making characters S rank or something along the lines. Me? i'll admit I have done that but its only two Sanosuke(even though hes not a ninja) and Zen,the other two Sora and Vash are chuunin(Sora) and Genin(Vash) and thats all the characters I have. But I see where you are getting at Koga,but I have never tried to become OP or w/e I barely use any of my jutsu for Zen in a fight but thats mostly because there hasn't been a huge thing going on.

[Guest]

Koga you have earned my respect form this. Your approach at this is what I have been waiting for. People like Keitieki only whine and complain. You have brought forth logic to the table. For this I praise you. Yes I have seen some of the things you spoke of. I admit I've gone overboard with powerful characters which is why I am going through steps in rp manner to be rid of some of these characters. As for other things like what was said about the mods and admins being harder to face than a regular member, (i dotn know if you mentioned this but this point was brought to my attention by both K and Jinkai,) The reason being is because mods and admins are typicaly better rpers and for some this was the reason they were picked to be mods and admins on top of having been with the site for longer lengths of time. Yes some of the stuff may be op and I dont know about the others but I am currently trying to dumb down my own things as well as cracking down on others to ensure this is fixed. It was also brought to my attention that some people think this site is dying. This is hardly the case. We've had like four people leave that I can think of. I am also currently going through measures to recruit new members and have recieved two so far. This site will grow. This is realy all I have to say on the matter. But I feel it neccesary to say thank you again Koga for the respectful approach and the generosity of your time thinking on all this and reviewing the site. Due to these two facts, your oppinion will be noted much more than others who have only complained and not tried to help and only drivel on about it. THANK YOU! I can not express enough how glad I am that you posted this.

[Kenshi]

At first you pissed me off about this....Because I was just a bit hot tempered that day, but I read it again, and now....I realize some of the things you are saying are true.

You think we're overpowered...


The question is, what are your ideas to fix that?

[Koga]

Thank you for the responses, Ill address each of you one at a time, nice and easy.

Zen, I knew you would be one of the first to reply to this, mostly because youre one of the staff that isnt in the severely overpowered category, as well as because you were involved in the Keiteki issue. While I certainly agree that you arent one to go ballistic with your jutsu and summons and actual abilities for your characters, even having simple techniques for your multiple higher ranking characters makes them considerable threats, much moreso than someone with a single high ranking character with similar abilities. Regardless, you really shouldnt be too critical on yourself involving what I said there. You arent as far out to sea as some others are.

However, Id like to point out something that many people unknowingly overlook. In the world of rping, there are certain people who truly take to heart the physics and reality of the universe that they are playing in. They do things as they obviously would be done in the realm that they are imagining they're in, and keep everything that they make within the borders of what they know of from said universe. Certain people simply prevent themselves from overpowering their characters through a need of a challenge, through the yearning to actually do things as if they were really in that world. By having that type of built-in instinct, it truly helps people rp, and helps sites as wholes. If every member sits down and considers "If Pein is/was one of the strongest entities in the Naruto Universe, strong enough to kill Jiraiya, a man who scared off the team of Itachi and Kisame single-handedly, and his most powerful ability destroys an entire village in one shot, while putting him out of commission for a few days, would it be plausable for me to make a world-annihilating blast that I can do six times a minute?", then problems like this could be much less widespread. Zen, you clealry have a fair grasp of such a thing. The biggest problem I could see with you in the overpower department is the multiple characters. You may want to consider chopping a few down. Just a suggestion.

Taku, thank you as well. Im glad to see that you understand what I hoped to do through posting this. Hopefully we can really accomplish some good through it. Though you did have some good points in what you just said.

However, as much as I agree in the theory that administrators and moderators automatically need to be at least somewhat more powerful than average users to uphold the pecking order of things, as well as the fact that they are normally high-end rpers, its a bit difficult to say that those are sufficient reasons to give them immeasurable power, even if they never use it. That brings back my other point, that even if they never use the amazing powers they are granted, it doesnt change the fact that those powers are much too great, and are, in themselves, overpowered. With that in mind, allowing the staff to have power such as that makes being on the staff seem like a position with the gods. It makes all the moderators and administrators look overpowered, even if its only a few of them, and makes things amazingly unfair if you grant them insane abilities just because they have better skills in rp or are higher up on the site's food chain. If you give the more skilled people stronger abilities just because of their writing ability, then the newer, less skilled people would never improve, because they wouldnt stand a chance. The rules should be set in stone and if one person wouldnt be allowed to have a certain ability, then no one should.

Yoshimo, I can fully understand what you must have felt when you first read this. I knew that feeling as well, and I had figured that was what kept you from responding earlier. Take note of this much though, things like this are bound to happen, so if you ever find something particularly aggravating, do as you just did. Give yourself time to think about it, consider both sides of the arguement, try looking at yourself from another persons eyes, read what got under your skin multiple times, and most importantly, dont ever let your emotions speak for you. Thats what your mind is for. Im glad to say that you already know all that based on how you responded, but just keep it in the back of your head. Its something that always helped me to do what I needed to.

Now, your question.

Something Ive always been praised for is being a man of ideas. Though I do have quite a few ways bouncing around in my head, what Im worried about is the mass appeal that those ideas would have if we tried enacting the ones that would better take care of the problems. Considering what an explosion of defensiveness Keiteki caused, I wouldnt be surprised if the same happened, even in worse form, if we went around trying to undo all the overpower that was already put in place. That much, Yoshimo, would be something you would need to take care of. Getting everyone on the site to cooperate with the ideas, so long as you felt that it would be the best way to take care of what needed to be done. That is my only concern, that an uproar would be caused, and from that, the site being sent into a downward spiral, essentially destroying what we set out to save.

If there is anything you need to ask yourself, its whether you would try to fix the problems there are on the site to make a greater one, while risking losing it altogether, or keeping the site as is, and not trying to fix the problems it has for the sake of keeping the site afloat.

It isnt my place to tell you which option is right or wrong, its up to you and the staff to decide. Once I receive the word, I will begin shooting my ideas towards you. Until then, Ill keep thinking them over.

[Koga]

Im assuming that half a week of silence isnt a great sign. If it isnt your answer to what I was saying, by all means, continue thinking about it, if you have been. Though if you are still thinking about it, keep in mind something very important. This type of dilema is a virus. The longer you allow it to live, the harder it gets to deal with. If you are planning to take action against it, I advise doing so soon.

[Zen]

Well no lol I forgot about this,but anyway I only have 4 characters but 1(Sora) is gonna die soon anyway.

[razor_shinobi]

i really agree with koga even though i kinda OP, i think atleast. but im not an admin either

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