Prime Time?

Hello! I'm realizing I short of joined at a weird time given the holidays et al, but generally what has been the game's "prime time" as far as time zone goes?

Just trying to get a sense if there's a better time to set aside for meeting folks, as everyone I've met so far has been super lovely! But just wondering if bigger crowds are mostly organized via stated RPT times or when the "rush" usually is.

Hello!

Awesome to see new people. And hmm I would through out 9 pm EST evenings into the 4 am ish times for busier times amongst the combinations of time zones. I answer that with the times I am most often free/seeing people online.

Events can also be good for coordinating times, paired with ic coordinating (letters, rumors etc)

There seems at the moment to be a smaller peak in the mid-afternoon (game-time, EST), and then a lull of a few hours, followed a bigger one as tpb Ighlaf says in the evenings from late night/early morning, but lately I have been finding people at all hours, which is quite nice! :)

As a follow up, what is the current kind of expected "loop" or what should folks generally be doing? What should they not be doing?

I have fun kind of wandering about and looking at stuff and foraging things, but, should I be looking to sell them? Craft with them?

The main purpose of Avaria is simply to tell stories together through roleplay and writing, so simply engaging with the world, with other characters, and with the story system is really the chief thing you're "supposed" to be doing in playing the game. The other thing, of course -- since we're only in alpha -- is just to help us develop the game by exploring the world, reporting bugs and typos, making suggestions, and giving general feedback about how things work.

As far as activities like foraging and hunting go, they're designed more as means of obtaining materials for crafting, or as subsistence-level activities for outdoors-oriented characters, rather than as a method for making serious money. As the systems are better developed, there will be more chances to find rarer plants and creatures and harvest more expensive parts from them in order to at least supplement a living. But right now they're in a pretty rudimentary state and by far the most reliable way of making money is through a job. Crafting can also be a decent money-making venture, though I need to get a lot more materials into the game.

One thing I've been working on is some long overdue updates of the wiki, and I've started by updating some pages pertaining to the story system, namely:

• Personal Stories
• The STORY Command
• The QUERY Command

These features are all things to help people develop their own stories and get involved in existing ones -- which, again, is really the main point of Avaria.

There are in fact quite a few background stories currently ongoing in the game, though I'll admit they're mostly going at a low simmer simply due to the fact of my limited time to do All the Things. But they are there, so simply being around and roleplaying may loop a character into current events, or garner them a connection that may lead to something interesting down the line. There are also PCs who have interesting stories of their own (some of them quite new PCs, even!) so just getting to know people may open additional doors to fun and character development.

As far as submitting character stories to the action queue goes, in general I'm probably not going to encourage submission of new PCs' stories until the player and/or PC has been around for a few months. This is just because:

• This gives new players time to learn about the game world and what is possible and interesting to do in it.
• It gives new characters (belonging to either new or old players) time to be developed more fully and begin to pursue truly meaningful stories.
• It allows staff to prioritize helping players/characters who have already invested meaningful time in the game, and who are likely to stick around to make use of their stories and plot hooks. It can take serious staff time and resources to address a story in a genuinely productive and interesting way!

However, I DO encourage everyone to make use of the QUERY command to request interactions with NPCs, and the STORY REQUEST command to ask for small, quick responses to stories. It may still take me a little while to respond, but I *try* to take care of these within a couple of weeks, and often I can do them within a few days, just depending on what else I have going on (in Avaria and outside of it). One caveat is that I'm roughly on the same time as Avaria, so I'm mostly available for actual interactions in the US Eastern-time evenings, and then on some weekends during the daytime as well.

I know it can be easy to feel like you don't really know what to do to pursue a given character's interests, or to find new things to get involved in, especially given our still-limited systems and small player base. My main suggestions are just to create and develop your personal stories, and simply to be around and engaged with the world. And, maybe above all, to be patient! I am, alas, only one limited human being, and though I do try to gently reel people into existing plotlines and help with those of their own PCs, I have a lot of things pulling me in all directions and I can't always immediately engage people even when I'd like to.

But, I am excited to have new people and to see where their stories eventually lead!

So, checking in a bit over a month later, still sort of trying to get a handle on what might be an interesting personal story to pursue versus more just "organic" RP.  In general, do folks (or had folks) joined with more fleshed out backgrounds that more naturally gave those hooks, or is there a more obvious (something) I might be missing that works/has worked for folks?

Well, I'm about as new as you, so this is just my two cents! I haven't had trouble coming up with things I want to pursue, though admittedly part of that is my ADHD-fueled hyper-curiosity. But I also think my usual character-building approach gels very harmoniously with Avaria's system. 

So for Kamenes, I did start with a more fleshed-out background that came with one big goal to get me going (the desire to attend the Elucidarium to study the history of the Amunati/their religion). The motivation for that hook came out of a personality trait (fascinated by historical questions and supernatural mysteries) that I expected would lead him into more interesting hooks in the future. And then underlying the personality trait is a foundational need or motivation - a thing this character wants and does not have (a way to comprehend the world that gives him a place in it). You may look at that need and say "well, that's stupidly ambitious". That's actually the point! For me, at least, the trick is to make that need something so difficult to truly fulfill that there's something to perpetually propel a character forward even if specific stories are followed through to the end. I owe this approach to my favorite piece of advice on writing ever, which really helped me formalize my process of character creation.

While this is something I typically do before I make a PC, the same process happens organically in RP all the time too. If you know something your PC wants to pursue, you can kind of intuit backward from there. WHY does this appeal to them- what psychological need would fulfilling this goal meet? Are they seeking security, autonomy, a desire to be loved? Most every character I play starts around one need that's the core of their concept, but I end up discovering more needs along the way through looking at other hooks and goals that resonate. Once you figure out a need, you can spin more goals out of it naturally, because it's rare people do only one thing to pursue those fundamental desires.

If absolutely nothing seems to present itself as a goal for a PC, I think this can even be done in a slightly OOC-led way. That is, you can think about the kind of things YOU want to do on a character, what sort of RP would interest you to pursue, and then work backwards to figure out what would motivate your character to pursue such a thing. With a less pre-formed backstory, you have a chance to insert something that could organically lead in a more exciting direction. Maybe there was something someone said to your PC that didn't mean much at the time, but now takes on a different meaning... maybe there was an old passionate interest that flamed out due to circumstances, but could be revived... maybe you even want to request a certain inciting incident to motivate a change in your story.

I hope this is helpful and not just rambling!