I would like to ask how many remember a dragon channel that didn't have the bot in it? Would there be interest in recreating that channel?
Let me try to explain my thinking and see if anyone else has similar thoughts.
I can only speak from Spirit Shard perspective as that was where I started. Regrettably I have forgotten the dragon's name who started the channel. I remember the mass invites getting sent across the shard to all dragons. Many were puzzled like I was, why was I invited and what was the channel for? What I remember being told that it was a place for dragons to gather to ask questions and find answers. It was a place to find groupmates and just hang out and have fun. Spirit shard had many channels in use back then, alot were heavy rp so dragon channel didn't need to be. Besides, you couldn't pop in with "where do I find xyz?" in the middle of a convoluted rp story and expect to keep your head on your shoulders. The game mechanics were a large reason for the need for a dragon channel. Something as simple as "how do I mine?", has two completely different set of directions depending on if you are dragon or biped. So the dragon channel of Spirit was mostly light rp with some story times. We did have some elder dragons who wrote wonderful lore stories and shared them with us.
Fast foward to the destruction of the old shards and the formation of Order. Those first days were very chaotic on the shard. We had dragons from all over trying to get aquainted and do things as they had always done. There was a fair bit of hashing things out. But surprisingly enough, the stories of the different versions of dragon channel were fairly similar. Though there were those who wanted to make it a heavy rp channel. There was turmoil along the lines of this current summer. This was when Zideon put the rp rule sticky in our forums. Still we argued, eventually the dust settled and dragon channel was close to what I knew on Spirit. The history of dragon channel on Order has been a recycling of this same scenario continued. When I woke up this summer from another long sleep I thought it was still the dragon channel that had been home for all these years. After a few weeks I realized it wasn't home anymore and left. It seemed to me there were too few left who remembered the old ways, and the dragon glade sit on my rock isn't something my character would do.
I missed having a channel to hang out in and be silly if I felt like it so I logged in my hatchling on Chaos shard to see how dragon channel fared there. It was about what I remembered, though I was surprised on two accounts. The order refugees I found who had been driven off by order's dragon channel, and being told that I was more in depth and helpful then normal for the channel (chaos) for answers to the questions posted. To me those two things were telling and saddening.
What I would like to suggest is original dragon channel (player made) to be the help/group/light rp/optional channel it always was. Let dragon channel with the bot be the heavy rp rule set that Zideon posted for us so many years ago. I think this might be a workable solution to the cyclic turmoil that dragon channel with the bot goes through. For the exact name of the player channel I favor Orginal Dragon Channel, though I am not sure what would be best that wouldn't confuse new players. I have been pondering this idea for many weeks. It will not work without community support so I am asking you, the players of Order.
Dracaena Starfyre