Heh, my thoughts exactly. I just joined because Burning wouldn't leave me alone. 
But as soon as I hammer out the final kinks, I'm hoping to throw up an RP everyone can join regardless of who they;ve met or not.
Seeing how th 2nd Rikti War took a nosedive, I'm spending more time developing this one... 
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
I sort of feel the same way. It reinforces set cliques and really restricts new posters from joining into the fun(or those that want to break away from using the same old characters over and over). I know I'm not the only one that notices theres several groups that tend to stick with eachother and don't mingle with the other groups.
I tend to ignore those threads now. It's just really repetative and I know its either going to die or seemingly never come to a conclusion in the near future. I learned my lesson with the failure of my thread although it was an important story I wanted to tell. I'll just leave such story telling to (Story) threads instead.
Yes I'm bitter and I don't feel the need to hide it. As if I ever do try to hide it...
I concur with Leo, from my observation these threads tend to follow similar patterns and either die off before the story gets rolling or end up going on forever with no resolution like it's trying to be Inuyasha.
I also can't stand being a bit part. If I'm entering a story I want a share of the action and the glory. If I've been "called in to help" then I don't want to show up and just become another member some army of sidekicks.
Yeah. That's largely why I felt like crap making Bad Company, because despite being 'open' in the sense that anyone could join I had to close it off at a fairly low number with respect to that it had to follow a set number of houseguests for the sake of the game. I even let a couple more in just because I didn't realize it'd take and I felt like a dick.
I really think the ideal solution is to take exclusive RP to exclusive boards. If you have a fairly good idea of who's going to be eligible to join you may as well invite them and everyone can be happy and enjoy it without it looking like a VIP event where you have to be one of the who's who.
I personally plan to have such an RP in the distant future with regards to a character of mine. If they somehow become well known by next to EVERYONE, I'd consider doing a thread here. Otherwise I'd put it somewhere else. >_>
Well now I feel like a damn fool for not realizing that RP was considered exclusive unless stated as open. I know nobody here knows me or my critters - I don't have enough computer time to read, much less join in, a full-on open thread - but I placed 'Eminent Domain' here anyway, in hopes folks might be interested in something different. And, frankly, because the Victory forum is so hostile to RP that putting it there was a lost cause. I tagged it with (VictoryRP) solely to indicate that's where the character is, should anyone wish to talk to him in-game, and apparently that was a big mistake on my part.
What would y'all suggest? I can't very well call it 'OpenRP' because at some point I8 is going to make all my maneuverings moot, therefore there's limited opportunity for anyone, including me, to affect the outcome. Should I repost it with a different tag?
What I mean by exclusive are these ones where "you must know X character to participate".
I know that for some of them it makes sense, like why would Blightlord extend his vengance to characters he's never been crossed by (at least that is what I think Final Vengance is about). But these kind of RPs get annoying as they become more common.
Nothing kills the excitement of spotting a new RP like reading the rules and seeing that you're not invited because none of your characters have even met whomever is central to the story.