Posted by Kim on July 31, 2019, 10:08am
Operation Audacious Phoenix - the rebuild of the RPR - is in full swing.Audacious means...
- showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks.
- intrepidly daring
- adventurous
- recklessly bold
- rash
- marked by originality and verve
This is exactly how I feel about this rebuild. It scares the heck out of me. It excites me to distraction. It is easily the craziest idea I've ever undertaken with the RPR and yet the payoff can be so very big for the whole community.
And a phoenix, of course, is a mythical creature. Generally, there is only one at a time, and every century (or in our case, decade) it remakes itself - becoming something new, strong and vibrant, and yet is still recognizably the same bird.
Operation Audacious Phoenix is about the RPR renewing and modernizing itself, making everything about it stronger -- and yet recognizably still the same site and community. 
I know what you're wondering: Will we have to rebuild all our characters? Will we keep our RPs? All data will be transferred over. You won't lose anything.
I've been working on this project since the start of the year, and I'm a little more than halfway through. Accolades, kudos, private messages, forums, the help section, the shop, inventories and items, the news, user settings, user profiles - they've all been rewritten completely from scratch to get the RPR ready to meet 2020.
Some of this is just pure necessity. Some of the site's code is nearing 10 years old, and will soon be made defunct by the simple passage of time. But I've chosen not to simply replace those pieces in isolation, and instead am rebuilding the entire thing on a more modern code base, because of what that will make possible. Features we've only dreamed of until now.
Now, the main obstacles left to releasing this new version are re-creating character profiles and groups -- and all their templates, and all the apparatus to build and manage them. This is the big one, the beating heart of the RPR. I've been holding off to do them last, to buy myself as much time as possible to plan how to make them both backwards compatible and as forward-looking and feature-packed as possible.
But I've also known that these things are so challenging, to get them done right, I'll need to focus on them like a laser beam - not steal whatever moments I can in the evenings and weekends, when I'm not distracted by other client work. I want to live and breath characters and groups for as long as I need to until they are done, ready to emerge from their phoenix pyre as gleaming, glowing, powerful new versions of themselves.
That's why, starting next week, the RPR will be hosting a fundraiser for Operation Audacious Phoenix, to buy me the time that I need to take this project to completion. It will, in fact, be a bake sale. 
This digital bake sale will combine some aspects of a kickstarteresque fundraiser with some aspects of more traditional RPR flower sales for something that I hope is fun, unique and helps to give us the necessary boost we need to complete Operation Audacious Phoenix. Plus, you'll be able to earn cool backer rewards through your support!For more information about Operation Audacious Phoenix, please visit the Operation Audacious Phoenix Group, where I've been posting progress updates and previews.
Comments
The hype is real!!
Can't wait!
Rogue-Scribe
July 31, 2019
6:42pm
This is pretty exciting!
Very cool!
Good luck! While I don't comment I do appreciate all the work that is done here!
Thanks everyone! I'm super super hype for Audacious Phoenix. 
There will be more details really really soon!
There will be more details really really soon!
I appreciate all the work you've done for this website Kim! I haven't spent any money on here but I totally will in the bake sale just to help it out, even a little bit â¤ï¸
I'm so dang excited! 
So excited to see this!!! Can't wait!!!
It's really nice to see how much you care about the community! Thanks for all your hard work, and I hope your coding adventures go smoothly! (as smoothly as coding can go, anyways)
RPR is already the cream of the role-play crop for me, the fact that it's going to get even better still blows me away.
Bake sale bake sale bake saaaaale~ My apron is flippin' ready!
North-Wood
July 31, 2019
10:43am
Cannot wait. Just hope that Adelia doesn't eat all the baked goods.... again....
nightmqre
July 31, 2019
10:38am
I will have to bug the hell out of my mom to buy absolutely as many of these as I can. She won't hear the end of it next week 
I can smell the baked treats and yummies already~ I am so pumped to spend my cash to make RPR even better!
My wallet is crying.
I'm screaming in excitement.
My insulin pump is ready.
I'm screaming in excitement.
My insulin pump is ready.
WHO ARE WE?
ROLEPLAYERS!
WHAT DO WE WANT?
A NEW SITE!
WHAT WILL WE GET FOR BEING GOOD LITTLE BAIRNS AND WAITING PATIENTLY FOR KIM?
BAKED GOODS!
I see no downside
ROLEPLAYERS!
WHAT DO WE WANT?
A NEW SITE!
WHAT WILL WE GET FOR BEING GOOD LITTLE BAIRNS AND WAITING PATIENTLY FOR KIM?
BAKED GOODS!
I see no downside
Awwwww snap! Gonna be backing this 100% !!! Cant wait to see what's in store! Totally psyched!
Rpr 2.0 is going to be absolutely wicked! Thank you for all your hard work, Kim!
FantasyDreamer
August 2, 2019
4:46am