You may or may not have noticed, but there are now two message boards that are almost open for posting–a general writing board, and an OOC board. You might also notice that they’re powered by the old and trusty DiscussionApp, a web application that should by all means be well and truly retired as of, um, years ago.

Plans are in the work for the site to have its own boards, hosted on my own server, so that our posts can be preserved forever and ever, without any advertising, and so that they look just the way we want, with modern forms of formatting and saving drafts so that you don’t always (gasp!) have to write in Word. I still recommend it of course, but you won’t have to, anymore.

My boyfriend, Luke, has graciously agreed to bear the brunt of designing these new boards for me, and gracious it is, because I basically gave him an outline of a DiscussionApp board and went, “Here, can you make this for me?” and he looked at them and came to the obvious conclusion that they are the simplest boards in existence today; to which I sagely nodded at and went, “Yes, that’s why I love them.” He then made me write up a giant list of pros and cons for the kind of boards I wanted (okay, not giant, but he did make me do more research!), and his final comment was, “So you’ve completely fetishized these boards, haven’t you?”

Oh baby, yes. Mm-mm. Simple message boards! Yes, I love the DiscussionApp boards more than I really should. I love them because they’re simple, look the way I want them to, don’t have extra bells & whistles, and I used them for a good eight years with many a good time. It’s hard not to love things like that. But, after a bit of research, I do firmly believe that simpler is better, and a lot of message board designs these days (aka phpBB and its spawn), with all their smileys and dashboards and neat .php tables, leave something to be desired; they’re poorly and clunkily designed (if that’s not a word it is now), and do very little (or so I feel) to encourage easy browsing of well-written prose. In fact, I very rarely have any desire whatsoever to look beyond the dashboard of grinning emoticons and a bizillion unread posts to find the good prose.

So I promise you: our new message boards will be the simplest of the simple, and as close to the old boards as I can twist Luke’s arm. He’ll do what he can, and there’ll be a limit, but oh, they’re going to be beautiful things!

In the meantime, while the nitty-gritty bits of the site get back up and running, start thinking about your characters (new or old) and their introductions! Best of writing to ya,

Joni

Greetings, all you old members and fans and other folks who remember the Wheel of Time RP (WoT RP).

The WoT RP was a site that I and a few others started back in June 2000. It ran for nearly seven years, until February 2007. It closed because we needed some time apart; to spend more time with our own lives, recuperate, and basically take a break.

But now, with the rekindling of the Wheel of Time with the publishing of The Gathering Storm, it’s time to start writing again. So, I am slowly but surely re-building the site from the bottom up. The site’s name is still the Wheel of Time RP, but as you can imagine, the last three years have provided a lot of time for mulling over how things could have been done differently. The WoT RP is getting a second chance, and I intend to take that second chance and wring every ounce of opportunity from it. Oh, you’ll still recognize the site, but maybe not all of it.

As you probably also know, Robert Jordan passed away in September of 2007. He was a true genius, and I owe a great deal of who I am to the Wheel of Time, as reading it and beginning this site was probably one of the biggest influences in my life growing up. I literally wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Mr. Jordan, and I know of many others who can say the same thing. So here’s a tip of the hat to you, Mr. Jordan, and I hope that the writers who will soon grace this site will keep you close to their hearts.

Brandon Sanderson is also to be highly commended for his continuing of the Wheel of Time. We all have our own take on the series, and I’ve seen a lot of writers take on Mr. Jordan’s expansive world, but Sanderson has been able to make it come alive as–in my own opinion–only Mr. Jordan could. I’m pretty darn excited for the next two books, to see where the series goes and to discover all the twists and turns that Mr. Jordan had planned for us from the beginning.

Some things you can’t plan, however. I find myself where I was ten years ago, oddly: in front of my computer, typing madly late into the night, cursing under my breath at slow internet (which is still faster than the dial-up internet I used last time this site was built), oddly obsessed with things like novice requirements, Trainee names, and a new character in the works who needs to be just-so. It feels good to be back.

So let’s see where this takes us, shall we? Keep checking back for new updates, a new look, and message boards that are being designed especially for us.

Cheers,

Joni