TAKE BACK THE FEAR

because your staff knows that feel very, very well, yes you can! they’ll remain open until midnight cst/10 pm pst, possibly later :)

and it’s put a bit of a hindrance in how quickly things are able to get done on the site. we are working as quickly as we can, but because it seems that our initial plans of this sunday being the grand opening may not come through we’d like to give you guys an option to join in on our soft open.

if you post character development (moodboard, blurb, something that tells us more than just your characters age and profession) between now and 8:00pm cst tonight you’ll get an invite to the board. please submit the link to your proof to this post!

not for sure, but our last few loose ends are being tied up at a pretty quick pace and i’d say sooner rather than later ;) as soon as i have something more concrete i’ll make sure to share that with you guys!

how does a reveal of the final member group lineup (as voted by you guys!) sound as a preview? because i’ve got that coming your way in about an hour :)

with the soft opening going on, reserves are no longer open--nobody, including staff or members currently on the site because of the soft open, will be reserving anything not currently on the list until the grand opening. we want to make sure the reserve list stays as it is so there’s no confusion about which faces and projects are available!

first of all, please please please don’t feel that the tag is “shut down” in any way! i know i’ll still be posting in it and checking it regularly and i certainly hope everyone else will be as well. 

second of all, please try not to get anxious! if you’re feeling at all left out or uncomfortable, please come to my ask (thedallasstarsbucks.tumblr.com) and chat with me! i’m up for all kinds of plotting and just generally getting to know you :)

as far as the soft opening goes, it’s really just a setup period for people who went out of their way to start developing their characters in advance. before people start threading during the soft open, we’re encouraging them to really take the time to go into detail on their apps and projects. to that end, while you might not have access to the site yet, you DO have access to the app code (click here) and having it ready to go will go a long way toward being up and running :)

while actual threading and plotting won’t be discouraged (we’re not crazy and we know how excited everyone is to get things going) staff are choosing to look at our soft opening as more of a ‘time to get situated’ rather than a ‘jumpstart on the role playing game.’

we won’t actually be beginning our site calendar /until/ our grand opening which will put both our soft open members and grand opening members on exactly the same page in the timeline.

ideally everyone will spend the soft opening time period getting their characters 100% set up so that way when the grand opening rolls around all projects will be claimed and requests will be written.we fully intend to have site wide contests (of the creative, threading and plotting sort) that will hopefully integrate our members together seamlessly.

our aim is to create not only an rp universe that revolves around the celebrities we’re all going to grow to love, but a place for everyone to call home in the rp world. of course, fostering that home environment won’t be simply on the staff but on everyone together!

we also hope that as we head towards our grand opening that everyone will continue to plot and talk in our tag until everyone can be together on the board once we officially open up.

i am incredibly tired because i’ve been up for about 18 solid hours… and i hope that accurately answers your question!

- katie

christina here with my take on this! if there’s one thing i’ve learned in my nearly ten years rping (besides that trendy playbys will come and go but selgo is forever) is that some people are just cliquey. they’ve been posting together forever and they come into every new site with set ships in mind and mostly just want to thread their ships. it’s inevitable, it happens, and trying to police it would get messy and ugly fast.

on the other hand, i’ve also learned that if you put yourself out there even the tiniest bit, people tend to respond! i can’t speak for every potential tbtf member, but i can speak for the staffing team, and i can honestly say that we’re excited to get to know each and every one of you and we want to plot with all your characters! seriously, i want plots with every single character on the site. 

and like katie said above, we’ll be doing everything we can as a staff to encourage our members to plot outside of whatever friend groups or pre-set relationships they might have in mind. that means contests, points awarded for posting in shippers (and threading!!!) and also just being chatty as hell in the cbox. 

my hope is that the soft opening creates a sort of welcoming commitee, if you will--a group of members who have their characters set up and ready to go so that as new members roll in, they get instant plots! i always hate that awkward in-between period where everyone is scrambling to get set up and nobody is plotting yet, so i’m hoping that this actually eliminates some of that awkwardness. it’s my first soft open, but believe me when i say i have no interest in creating a clique of any kind.

tl;dr - we can’t control everyone, but we can set an example by being as friendly and welcoming as possible and plotting with absolutely all of you, regardless of when you join, and that’s what we intend to do. i’m excited about all of you, and i can’t wait to start plotting with your characters and chatting with you in the cbox <33333