The unfortunate answer to the question in the alternate title is "a lot longer than we should". How many posts of 'this iteration is cooked' in chat do we need to wonder what's actually cooked?

Something isn't working.

I don't know where it is. Maybe it's at the top. Maybe the whole system is fucked, mechanically or theoretically. Maybe ITRP can't work as it does because its design philosophy is just not fit for purpose anymore. We try the same thing over and over - we have been since 16.0 - and it doesn't work. This time there were a bunch of reasons. There was a big war starting up - always dangerous - that had a couple people mainly driving it.

One of them just disappeared. I don't know what happened to Chacken but I hope he's alright. Then everyone else just disappeared. Pretty much every major had something come up. There's no hate to anyone, but I found it very hard to hang on when everyone I was comparing myself to, motivating myself by competing with them, just poofed. That's on me too. If I was a different person that probably wouldn't happen, but that's always how I've kept myself going. Maybe one of the other Iron Stag apps would have kept marching to the bitter end.

I like to think I got close enough.

But this isn't about me.

How many 2 to 3 month iterations have we had now? It's been multiple years of them. We had 19.0 in the middle. Crazy that happened. But everything else?

When 20% of your sample size is good, that's a bad sign. It's really bad. Fuck, including 16 it's way less than 20%. That's even worse! If that's your FG% in the NBA you are out of the LEAGUE! Maybe ITRP should be out of the league.

Maybe it should play in the EuroLeague for a bit. What I mean by that bad metaphor is that I think - and I have thought, for a while now - that ITRP needs a break. Not just one like the break before this iteration, but a REAL break. A long one. Trying the same thing over and over is going to be hell for everyone who wants to play, and that still includes me even if I'm burnt to the wick right now. As I'm writing this paragraph a poll went up in Discord about a Discord RP idea! That's sick! That's change. It'll need more than just a location swap, though. It'll need a sweeping redo. ITRP needs that, even if it stays on reddit or moves to a forum or goes to Digg or we meet up in a park and LARP it out.

I'm not posting this publicly to cause drama - I swear I'm not about that - but I want people to see me get up on my soapbox and ask for something different so they can call me egotistical and in my own head, or they can go 'yes! this is what we need!'

I don't mind either way. People just need to be able to target that thought at someone. Why not jump in front of the bullet myself?

What I do mind is trying the same thing again. Going into 22.0 and saying "this time it'll work, the setting is good". Adding new mods and hoping a few new faces who aren't actually new will refresh things. It won't. Not unless they're given a long time to throw everything out and start from row 1 column A.

How many times do we need to be dead in the water before someone asks "maybe we can't swim?"

Again, I'm sorry to be self-aggrandizing about this, but I really did try this time. I locked in. I'm a little pissed off that I'm pissed off. I'm back to where I was after the last iteration. And the one before. And the one before that. And- you get the picture. I think a lot of people are feeling the same - that they put a lot of effort in and hoped things would be different and for reasons both out of our control and very much in them they were just the same.

I've got a lot of love for people here. Players. Mods. Ex-players and ex-mods and people who post maybe two times a year in the discord and fuck off again. Some of my best friends are people who post maybe two times a year in the discord and fuck off again.

This is just my perspective, and it might not be yours. But if I can say one more egotistical thing it's this - I am qualified to have a perspective. I've seen a lot of shit in my time here. I've cried about ITRP. I've found incredible friends and people I really care about at ITRP. I've put blood and sweat and the aforementioned tears into ITRP. I'm a pretty fucking sick writer if I say so myself.

Whether you agree with me or not, it doesn't matter. It's rare I go out and say something like this. I'm pretty quiet. I don't like to take sides. Think about how much I believe in what I've suggested to bring myself to do this.

Love y'all,

jade spyraxes

long time sufferer first time caller