ISRP Chat Moving Off Wizards' Website

[WotC_Mel]

Announcement from main chat page:

ISRP Chat Moving Off Wizards' Website

Wizards in-character roleplaying chat area, ISRP, will be moving to a new home on August 15. Based on guest feedback about migrating to new chat software, two current ISRP WizOs have volunteered to host existing chat software, ISRP rooms and bots to provide continuity of play for ISRP guests. As of August 15, Wizards will no longer be hosting the ISRP rooms but players will find a link to its new home on the existing chat URL. Chat related forums will be archived until the end of 2005 for player's ease of reference.

With Wizards assistance, we hope the new host will be up and running in parallel with the Wizards site to ease transition until the old site closes its doors on the 15th. More details will be announced closer to the transfer date. Meanwhile, RPG Live will continue to be hosted by Wizards on the new Chatspace software. Questions can be asked about the move on this thread or to the Community Manager at boards@wizards.com.

 

[Nevine]

I would just like to point to everyone, just incase they had not noticed, that if these two WizO's had not volunteered. This announcement would have amounted to "we are shutting the area down and leaving you no alternatives".

I will leave it at that. Since our esteemed community manager is a vertiable god-queen when it comes to all things Wizards.comMUNITY, I cannot speak to her as one adult to another adult doing something horrible because it is the easiest thing to do.

So, yeah, thanks.

I am sure some personal agendas have played into this, the Games area has always had it out for us. I hope those people are happy.

And please, do not say how generous it is of you to even be providing a link to this new site. It is the least you could do for completely destroying something people loved.

I sure hope Live! enjoys the new expanded budget. For all of the 6 people that actually go there.

 

[WotC_Mel]

Games had nothing to do with this decision and will not get in additonal funds because of what ISRP did or did not do.

-Melanie

 

[Nugan]

As most of you know, I've been almost completely absent from this site for about a year now, but a friend of mine passed me a link to this thread, and I'm very interested.

I have a few questions:

Which WizOs are taking over the site?

If Wizards no longer controls the site, does that mean that these two WizOs will have completely control of the site without any WotC oversight?

Are they buying the chat software from Wizards or are they simply being granted permission by Wizards to run these chats?

This has potential to be either a positive or a negative move depending on the answers to those questions.

 

[JudeSedai]

.....for the love of.

Right. How about I point out something that's actually very important to those of us who are here in this community to have fun as members of the community: We have a place to go with this. ISRP may be moving, but it'll still exist, and apparently the interface will still be the same type as the one that so many people complained about losing.

Personally, I don't care where it goes. I'm going with it, and so are all the characters I play.

Mel, thank you for giving us several weeks' warning on this. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing more news on where ISRP will be ending up soon.

 

[gillette]

How ironic! An RPG company that doesn't support roleplaying!

*snicker* Talk about an oxymoron:



"New and improved, almost perfect, virtual reality! Instant classic, mandatory options, same difference!"

Friendly war? Pretty ugly.

"Military intelligence." *simple confusion* "Educated guess?" "Subjective data." "Good grief!" *silent scream* "Hypothetical situations." *constructive negativity* "Lead balloon!"

Half true, deliberately thoughtless, clearly confused, mildly psychotic, pure evil, honest thief.

1) Constant change
2) Organized mess
3) Negative growth
4) Limited lifetime guarantee

Stand down! Happy demise. Act naturally. Eyes wide shut.

Self help?

Farewell reception.

 

[WotC_Mel]

Which WizOs are taking over the site?

At this moment WizO Raven is working toward being set up to take over the site. Two other WizOs have also expressed interest if an issue comes up in migration that precludes him from doing so. Therefore I will just refer to the new host as just that, rather than by name.

If Wizards no longer controls the site, does that mean that these two WizOs will have completely control of the site without any WotC oversight?

Yes, though Raven has intially expressed that he hopes to retain much of the current WizO staff to moderate and use much of the Wizards CoC. (Of course this depends somewhat on WizOs deciding that they would like to continuing hosting offsite.)

Are they buying the chat software from Wizards or are they simply being granted permission by Wizards to run these chats?

Wizards is not selling the new host anything. We will give whatever materials we have to the new host to make it possible to run the new site with as much continuity as possible, right down to what images the new host would like to preserve.

This has potential to be either a positive or a negative move depending on the answers to those questions.

I hope it will be a positive one and will be trying to make the transition as seamless as possible for players.

-Melanie

 

[WotC_Mel]

Mel, thank you for giving us several weeks' warning on this. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing more news on where ISRP will be ending up soon.

I realize that there is the problem with early notice that that means I would not have as many answers as if it were all just "done" and I could point to it. But I also know that not everyone will want to make the move and some people would appreciate the time to wrap up their storylines.

 

[Nugan]

Raven's a veteran, and he'll certainly make a strong choice to guide the transition.

I'd like to personally offer to help with this transition however I can. As many of you know, I run and moderate a freeform role-playing site of my own, and, hopefully I'd be able to assist in the transition in some way.

Ypu can get in touch with me through msn (nugan_wracod@msn.com), AIM (KingofCardboard), or email (nugan_wracod@yahoo.com) you'd like my assistance.

Edit: I had to change my email addy to my Yahoo one, because apparently the name of my site has been added to the swear filter. I'm not going to ask.

 

[Nevine]

ISRP Preservation

To help keep discussion of the future of ISRP in one place, boards are being provided. Raven is registered here, so he'll see all this. And, you know, it's a site that isn't blacklisted.