You joined six months before I did in 2008, Shinzuu, so you know it was like this five years ago. Holy Hell, five years ago...
true, but i didn't indulge in RPs at the time. it was only after my book became popular, and my mate was more active in RPs, that I got into it. Kin Chronicles Realm: Betrayal of the Guardians was a very long running RP that ran for 2 and a half years. it died due to a key player disappearing at a point where we couldn't turn anything around, coupled with other players getting complications to post at the time. but yes, i know what it used to be like, and yes, it did start out pretty lax, but I tightened up within a week, and it became a success. i had realized fairly quickly that a true Serious RP required strictness in order to last, on top of a good, thought up story. these days, i see RPs with good stories, but no real backbone to them in rules, and they die fast. The problem is, only real dedicated players can actually enjoy a serious RP, that's the bottom line. If you don't care enough to post, the don't join.
I used to get at people's throats about it all the time. I'd see they log on 2 or 3 days consecutively after their turn came up and they would post in a ton of threads and other RPs, but not post in mine, and not even say a word. Those are people who kill RPs, and those people get kicked really fast by me so that they don't kill my creations. I love RPs, and I hate for good ones to die. Every single RP I ever make are written out and planned months ahead of time so that I can adjust for players getting kicked and/or players make different decisions. Feel free to check any of my latter RPs, they have the longest list of rules you'll ever find in an OOC, but the most important is that they include 2 major things that make an RP work:
1) posting time limit: if people don't post, the RP gets stale, people get bored, death.
2) minimum posting limit: if the posts have no substance, you can't take the story anywhere, which ultimately leads to the same fate.
But I will say that back then, there were a LOT more dedicated players than there are today. It's a shame, really.