I just realized today that it's been just a little over a year since I stopped working on all the revamp stuff and I kinda forgot to post the update/explanation I drafted back in... july.... whoops. I dunno if anyone's still hanging around waiting for news at this point but just in case, I'll offer some sorely belated explanation
the whole story is pretty long so here's what it boils down to: we're not planning on doing any work on trhq for the foreseeable future. in the extremely unlikely event anyone feels like playing, feel free to do as you like in the guild without worrying about getting permission for anything (as long as you stay within the limits of gaia's tos, of course)
now the very long and thorough explanatory version:
so, this all started a very very long time ago, back when there were still raids and ORPs and big sale events and such taking place. gaia had already been in decline for a long time and participation in shop events reflected that - we started having issues in our sales where we struggled to make sure all the prize pokemon got owners, and maybe we weren't making things interactive enough but it seemed like there wasn't a whole lot of interest in plot developments. whatever the reasons, the decline in participation in both OOC and IC events dragged a lot on mine and Beef's motivation. we tried hiring colorists and even put some loose colorist productivity requirements into effect in hopes of filling the gap in shop activity that our loss of motivation had created, but then those colorists stopped doing things too
as things got quieter than ever, Beef and I started thinking that maybe we could rekindle some interest in both our members and ourselves if we changed some things up. we released a bunch of surveys to try to get an idea of what sort of stuff might get people active again, but nothing really lit the spark. we both got involved in our own separate things, both in terms of creative/free time activities and RL stuff. some time later, Beef told me she was drafting an announcement to close the shop, and I suggested that we push forward with the shop revamp first to see if it made things any livelier. if it did, yay - and if didn't, then at least we'd have tried
so we started the revamp. but just as we began working on all that, Beef had some things going on that she needed to prioritize, so it wound up being just me doing just about everything. planning, writing, rewriting, organizing, and drawing to boot: it was waaaayy too much work for just one person. add to that the fact that I'm the kind of person who gets my motivation from others being enthusiastic about the stuff I'm working on and it was a a clear and concise recipe for burnout, so when that burnout inevitably came I put shop things down and focused on spending my free time in more engaging and fulfilling ways
fast forward to where we are now. at this point, even if both Beef and I were hit with a bolt of inspiration unlike any we've ever felt before, there'd still be things to give us pause. first of all is the fact that the brand new computer I got a year ago doesn't run my copy of photoshop (wtf) so I wouldn't be able to cert and make lines the way I always did. secondly, and more importantly, gaia's future as a website is unclear right now. not only have they been practically hemorrhaging users, but it seems like they've been pretty financially unstable for a while. I'm not really down with the idea of putting tons of work into a project on a site that's been looking like it might be forced to shut down sometime within the next few years. so I think if, IF we were to revisit the revamp, we'd probably want to scout out a new place to host the shop, take out the art purchasing aspect, and focus on just RP. but that's probably something we'd only consider if a decently sized group of folks said they were sincerely interested, since like - and I'm not at all meaning to sound vindictive or anything here - but we got kind of tired of working hard on stuff and getting lukewarm reactions to it, y'know? personally, the way things are right now, I'm only interested in getting back to work on shop stuff if I know for a fact that there are people who really want it
so yeah, what it comes down to is that the shop's basically on an indefinite hiatus, and if it does ever eventually return it probably won't be on gaia. Beef doesn't really log in anymore but I still habitually collect the daily chance every day, so if you want to get in touch with us privately for some reason you can PM me
I mean I’ll be honest, nowadays I’m fulfilling my need to write just by writing regular stories so I personally am not really hurting for a place to rp - but I do look back on roleplaying at trhq with great fondness and sometimes feel like it might be nice to do it again someday / feel somewhat inspired to finish all the revamp stuff I left hanging. it would be a lot of work both to finish and maintain it though so I don’t really want to get into it just on a whim and risk things sputtering out again just a little ways down the road. I do feel guilty leaving a place that was so important to me for so long hanging though, so I wouldn’t mind giving it a go if there were like, ten or more people enthusiastic about it? enough interested parties that I could feel relatively confident that all the time spent setting everything up wouldn’t be wasted, y’know?
Oh man, I can't believe this shop lived for so long! ;__; I always admired this place from a distance years and years ago. If you end up starting things up again I'd love to join!
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