Enginseer-42Character Activity Guide
#1
Foreword

So here's my kind of simple guide on character activity. Mostly this is intended for new players, as most players who aren't new have probably figured it out by now. The following are my four main guidelines for how to keep your character progression moving forwards and not stalling out or stagnating.

Guideline 1: What are we going to do today?

Keep this in your mind as you log in to play. "What am I going to do right now?" Always have something you're looking for or looking to do. It doesn't have to be something big or earth shattering. It could be something as simple as 'Let's talk to a character over there.' or 'Let's join a faction.' Your options will change as the character gets established, makes friends, makes enemies, but you shouldn't get so bogged down in long term ideas and long term plans that you when you don't see a path forwards on those at the moment you can't find something to do right now. Always have something you are doing in the moment and try not to wait too long to find something to do.


Guideline 2: What are we going to do tomorrow?

Once you've gotten the hang of setting short term goals for doing 'right now' you should start looking at more long term plans. Think not just about 'What am I going to do today' but plant seeds of plots for tomorrow as well. You'll do this inadvertendly just by doing things in the moment, but actively trying will let you set up long term plots with long term payoffs. Think about 'What will happen next? How will this character likely react to what I'm doing?' Cultivate long term IC friends and allies, as well as long term enemies, because a good enemy is incredibly valuable, especially as it allows you to define your character. If your character can be friends with anyone, they just become a sort of fuzzy ball of niceness. It's enemies that allow you to define your characters limits, and also challenge them.


Guideline 3: Consistency

AKA the facet of character activity I consistently fail at upholding as of late. A big facet of the game is that it's always on. Always moving. There's times of high activity and times of low activity but things are always in motion. With that in mind, being around consistently is important. Even if it's not all the time, being around and available in a consistent manner will enable you to keep involvement with events. People will start to rely on you if you're around. On the other side of the coin, if you're not around enough, people will stop including you in their plans and plots.


Guideline 4: Malleability

Your character is a person in a constantly changing world. While standing strong on some things is a good character trait and lets you keep a consistent character, they shouldn't remain unchanged by events around them. Allow your character to, at least in part, be defined by the world around them and not just by whatever character concept you initially came up with. This gives them roots, gives them ties.


And that's pretty much it on my end. Though if someone else wants to drop in and share their own wisdom that they think I missed on how to keep character activity moving forwards rather than stagnating that'd be cool.
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