Let me get my grubby little hands on this beautiful, beautiful suggestion.

When it gets to a point where we need to beg and plead other members to for the love of god do a patrol with me, it loses the appeal. Characters are stuck in limbo. The actual date of birth for characters is obsolete. That being said, the hunting system and the battle system are big parts of the site and should not be totally eliminated from requirements, IMO.

Hunting is an everyday chore for warriors. There is never a time when they don't need to hunt. The requirement keeps us grounded in the universe, and I think there's a lot of ways that the hunting system can be incorporated into rp. The problem is that not many people do that, and then we end up with topics where cats are basically hunting in mostly silence. You're telling me these cats spend most of their time frolicking in the woods and don't talk to each other at all? Development can certainly be combined with requirements! Hunting topics don't always have to be a chore.

My bigger problem is with battle requirements, as, in my experience, they're significantly harder to fill. Truly, how many border skirmishes happen in this forest? I think battles should be natural and not manipulated by members who need to fill their requirements. That being said, I believe apprentices should be held accountable for at least one battle thread as per the current rank system, to ensure that new members understand it and to ensure in character that apprentices can hold their own.

I am 100% in favor of a socialization topic requirement to encourage interaction between clanmates. Now, with the three-character rule especially, we have more room to foster friendships and comradery in what are basically family groups. We should not prioritize mindless hunts and battles over roleplay. This does not in turn mean that we should get rid of the requirements for battles and hunts altogether. I would propose 1 hunting patrol for each rank and an emphasis on apprentices learning both systems.

tl;dr the current systems are important but should be scaled back, socialization requirements would be a great improvement to the site that allows for more enriching role play and realistic friendships within the clan.

I love the idea of the socialization topic, for sure. For the second suggestion, maybe the medicine cat or MCA as well? So they don't just have to talk to the leader or deputy, they could also use the MC or MCA? That could introduce some more casual RP interactions with those in the medicine field. I also love the assisting in a training session, especially if both parties have an apprentice - there was a lot of dual training in the books and that's something that you don't see a whole lot here, you see dual hunts but not really training.

All in all, I agree completely that the ranks for warriors was more based on utilizing systems rather than actual RP, and I think this will definitely help - especially since many who haven't used the systems have still been RPing in general :)

I don't have time to post a full suggestion at the moment because I'm at work but I'm tossing this general opinion:

Making requirements depending only on doing *a* topic. As great of an idea as requiring someone to socialize with specific ranks, we could run into the same issue of being held up and those higher ranks being bogged down. I only bring this up as someone who used to be a leader and see the downside in this! If ranking was tied just to doing a topic and less a specific type, there is more potential for fun RPs and less bog down of requirements.

Ripped wrote:

I don't have time to post a full suggestion at the moment because I'm at work but I'm tossing this general opinion:

Making requirements depending only on doing *a* topic. As great of an idea as requiring someone to socialize with specific ranks, we could run into the same issue of being held up and those higher ranks being bogged down. I only bring this up as someone who used to be a leader and see the downside in this! If ranking was tied just to doing a topic and less a specific type, there is more potential for fun RPs and less bog down of requirements.

A thought on this: What if you had to do X number of topics from a list of options for topics? O:

Better ;)

In all honesty, I've always loved our ranking system, even though I'm very bad at keeping up with it.  That though is because of my own personal choices, in both the sheer number of characters I had along with where I chose to place my time and focus.  I like the system now because, in the midst of all the forbidden romances and drama and murder plots, it always has managed to foster a side of realism to roleplay (with having to fight and hunt for the clan) and working your way up the ranks, at least to me, bred a sense of accomplishment.  Like grinding in a video game, reaching level 99 and being able to decimate pretty much anything that came in your path because of the time and effort you put into your character makes the rank and stats feel well-earned and fun.  

Alas though, the fact that not a lot of characters reach beyond the YW/W mark, and apprentices can sometimes be stuck for ages, says that we could do to improve something with the current system.  What I usually do with requirements is work them into the character's plot, for example, if an apprentice needs a fight, I get one of their friends to go with them and the encounter leaves an impression on them; physically, mentally, or otherwise.  With creativity, the current system can be bent to your whims very easily, and both the battle and hunting system are integral to why I enjoy WCC's 'gameplay' for lack of a better word.  I don't they should be removed or disregarded at all (that would make me a very sad Rainy) but at the same time, the points made about a character leveling based on their age also has merit.  

Characters like Night and Fernpetal (SkC warriors for a year yet never going above YW due to my own priorities) are kind of an enigma, and in my mind, I just write it off as them not being as strong or training as hard as their clanmates.  If we can find a new way to blend the current system with something more in-rp or time-based, I think it could be interesting to test.  I think we just need to be cautious to not let rp topics like sharing tongues fall prey to the current issues; a camp full of half-hearted conversations just for the sake of a requirement is a very real issue.  In the end, I think the problem isn't so much the system itself, but what people do with it.  When you only look at those topics as a means to make your numbers rise, it becomes a chore, but if you integrate it into your character's story, it becomes a chapter.  With fewer characters, this may become better, with people focusing their time on less, but that is yet to be seen; for now, I think it's more-so an inspiration issue more than a technical issue.

I could go either way. Rainy made a good point, though. Now that the character limit has been lowered, I don't think there will be as many forever-apprentices.
However, there also aren't very many open topics, so I think if there was a monthly-ish clan topic (posted by a leader or something similar) or just an open topic that someone posts to fulfill a requirement would be good for inter-clan relationships. Participation in these topics (whether requirement-based or not) could also potentially lead to more friendships being made and lots of realistic RPing, like older cats telling stories or offering advice.
Personally, I'd like to see more non-plot related, open, clan-wide posts so we can promote relationships between clanmates. However, I feel like there is a risk that if this rule is enforced too much, the topics would die after a couple of posts and people wouldn't necessarily use the topics for anything other than requirements.

Since I don't have anything higher than an apprentice I haven't encountered the problems with having a warrior yet, but in the apprentice apartment there's one thing that's struck me as a little strange. Mentors don't actually... interact a huge amount with their apprentices, and you don't get many topics where they're actually teaching them something. You can pretty much just level up your apprentice all by your lonesome and don't even have to bother with a mentor (who's RPer may or may not be half-inactive, though I was lucky to have Suma for Minkpaw ;) ).

Maybe for the apprentices there could be more topics that require them to actually do stuff with their mentors, rather than running around self-teaching? Like Suma's list idea, where you have to have X number of topics, and there's a random bunch to pick from.

I'm rather with Rainy in that I like the requirements and haven't ever had an issue with them; all my fights and hunts I have always been able to work into my character's story and development, and so I've never had a problem with being able to rank up my warriors in a way that seems natural and effective. That being said, Rainy and I both realize we might not be the typical user for that case, and it is true that since so many characters seem to stop ranking after x rank then maybe the ranking method needs to be changed slightly.


Drippydrip I had definitely had a thought of a mandatory Clan-wide sharing tongues topic. There are Gatherings, which are like a full site-wide sharing tongues topic, but there's never anything like that in Clans that I see. I think a monthly open thread would be cool but only if it gets utilized. No way to know if it'd be utilized without giving it a try!


Chicken, I agree, mentors and apprentices don't interact on WCC nearly as much as they do in the books. I would love to try to enforce it, as I really value my characters' relationships with their apprentices/former mentors, but I sure would feel bad if someone was held up because they were assigned an inactive member and they felt too shy to bring it up to their deputy to request a change. With smaller Clan sizes I dearly hope this will be less of a problem; if it does become less of a problem, then we could definitely try a "have a topic with your mentor" sort of requirement.

I’m not sure if this has already been addressed, but the only issue I have is the talking to another Clan’s cat at a Gathering bit. I feel this part really depends both on the character and on the leader.

For example, obviously there could be a cat who would either be too stuck up, too shy, or too loyal to their Clan to engage in a conversation with any other cat aside from their own Clanmates. But for the leader, I’m gonna use Tinystar as an example. He’s incredibly paranoid right now, and he more than likely won’t like the idea of his Clanmates talking to cats from another Clan. He may think they’re trying to give away SkyClan’s secrets to the enemy.

Anyway, those are my two cents. XD

idk if this would really be helpful, but ceremonies are generally pretty boring threads and no one joins them. it might be cool to have something about popping into a ceremony thread now and then! i very rarely have anyone besides the apprentice and mentor post in a ceremony thread (and i don't really post in other people's ceremony threads) and i think it could be helpful for developing better relationships within clans.

i like the requirements how they are and i think they're working the way they are, but i definitely see room for improvement too! i really like the idea of adding socializing with different ranks as a requirement.

So let's say we went with the idea that you must do X number of development type threads, but you could choose any from a list of prompts and if your thread fit that description it would count towards the requirement. What type of development do you guys see often that might deserve credit? What development could maybe be utilized more often if rank rewards were a benefit of doing it? I am very curious to see some ideas!

Possible Development Requirement Prompts?

• interact with a deputy/leader from your / any Clan
  
• interact with a Medicine Cat (or MCA) from your / any Clan
  
• interact with a Queen or Elder from your / any Clan
  
• interact with a Warrior from your / any Clan
  
• interact with an Apprentice from your / any Clan
  
• interact with a Kit from your / any Clan

"Interact" would likely need to be defined more thoroughly but I think sharing tongues and any type of patrol (border, battle, or hunting) could count; we could even divide them up into different requirements of "hunt with x", "battle with x", "share tongues with x". In addition, Your Clan or Another Clan could be their own types of requirements

• interact with a non-Clan cat
  
• assist in a training session
  
• use a Clan Move
  
• visit another Clan's territory