I'm curious about time commitment expectations for characters.

Normally, I have three characters. One is my primary that I put most of my playtime into. I have a secondary character that I play less, but I try for at least a couple hours per week. Usually, I have a third character to try out new race/class combos that I play 0-2 hours per week.

Also, my log in times vary wildly. I might get 2-3 hours straight one day; then the next day, real life makes me log out after 15 minutes.

Are there expectations for different types of characters? I figure if you're un-caballed and non-empowerment class, no one cares.

What sort of hours are expected for cabals where hours effect things, like being a Scion or being promoted in Fort, Trib, Empire? Do log-in times matter for all cabals? What hours are expected for a leader?

Is there an expected minimum log-in time under any circumstance?

Does it change for empowered characters? Do some imms tattoo people that don't log in enough to avoid the anti-hoarding code?

I searched the forums, but gave up easily. Thanks for any opinions.

Thanks for all the feedback. It is really helpful.

I'm a bit surprised some people only play one character. I like to play when I'm drinking sometimes and wouldn't want to do that with a serious character. Or sometimes you lose your sweet gear or have a mob death close to a new title, and need a break from a character, but still want to mud. I really don't know anyone else that plays the game so I have no idea what other people do.

Keep on muddin'

My answers:

>Also, my log in times vary wildly. I might get 2-3 hours
>straight one day; then the next day, real life makes me log
>out after 15 minutes.

The worrisome things here are:

1. Very short logins, and
2. Very short duration between logging in with two different characters.

In both cases there is the potential for it to look like you logged on, checked the "who" list, didn't like what you saw, and either logged off for good or logged off so you can get on with an alt for whom the "who" list was more attractive.

I'd shoot for 20-30 minute sessions and at least 20-30 minutes between logging in different characters. But, as others have said, real life happens. If you log on and have to quit 5 minutes later one time it's not going to be a big deal. If you do that on a daily basis then it might be.

>Are there expectations for different types of characters?

Sort of. A character in a leader spot who is not putting in the hours *specifically because he's playing an alt* may lose his leader spot. Same could be said for characters in other "limited" positions, but it's rare for action to be taken there. The two examples I can think of off the top of my head are Elite spots in Empire and any spot in Scion. Those decisions are made at the discretion of those cabals' respective immortals.

>What sort of hours are expected for cabals where hours effect
>things, like being a Scion or being promoted in Fort, Trib,
>Empire? Do log-in times matter for all cabals? What hours
>are expected for a leader?

No idea on Scion or Trib.

With Empire it boils down to you being online at the same time as someone who can promote you. If I'm a Sect leader I will happily promote any character to the level just below Elite. I won't promote him to Elite because those spots are limited. Of course, if I never see you because we're never online at the same time (because you're hardly ever online) then it's going to be hard for you to get promoted.

With Fortress, in terms of being promoted to Maran, my perception is that it mostly revolves around your rank, your total hours, and your total EPKs, plus the general quality of your role-play. But that is solely my perception and it could be incorrect; I don't speak for Fortress imms.

>Is there an expected minimum log-in time under any
>circumstance?

If you're not in a cabal then the only minimum is the auto-delete timer.

>Does it change for empowered characters? Do some imms tattoo
>people that don't log in enough to avoid the anti-hoarding
>code?

If you only log in enough to avoid auto-deleting then the odds of our paths crossing are pretty low. There's a certain amount of required interaction and/or observation before I'm going to tattoo someone.

My recommendation is to play one character at a time. Makes all this much easier.

Real life happens, and IRL>CF (don’t tell anyone I said this).

I don’t particularly care how many alts you have, as long as the character has good times/input/whatever.

The unfun answer to most of your questions: It depends. But I’ll hit a few things below.

If you’re in a cabal and not logging in for 15+ days, you may get uninducted. If you’re not caballed, nobody particularly cares. If you’re regularly on, even for a small time, this isn’t an issue outside of one cabal and leadership positions.

I can mainly speak for Tribunal. If you want to be Provost, you should have *decent* hours. I don’t expect anyone on 24/7, but you should be around enough to handle administrative issues and induction stuff. Which I guess actually best describes my position on most of this: if you’re managing what needs to be done, I’m not offended if you have an alt or if you aren’t putting in 100 hours a month. BUT be aware that if someone is competing for an exclusive position with you, leadership in particular, that’ll put you at a disadvantage.

Minimum login time only comes up in two situations. 1) You’re logging in just to see if you like your range and instantly log out. 2) You’re logging in to check WHO for your alt, which you then switch to. If you aren’t doing either of those – I don’t care if you’re logged in only for 3 minutes. Again, real life happens. You can see details on this in HELP MULTICHAR

Empowered characters... Depends on your Immortal I guess. For me – you not being around doesn’t push you backwards, but it also doesn’t give you any progress – you’re just in stasis until we have time to continue. So you could reach tattoo and the like as far as I’m concerned, it just may take longer in IRL days since you aren’t logging in as much.

A brief reminder for anyone who does have alts:
1)Your alts shouldn’t know about each other in general.
2)Don’t use an alt (even a level 1) to check WHO for you.
3)Don’t pass gear between your alts. If it’s EQ your alt had, play it safe and just avoid it like the plague.
4)You can’t have two chars in the same cabal. I will kick one of them out, and I don’t care what cabal it is.
5)You can’t have two leader characters. There is a warning in HELP LEADER about this.

I hope that answers some of your questions, and I hope other imms chime in as well just so you can figure out what you’re up against.

GL!

-Ish

having competing heroes in opposing cabals? What do you say to me having, for example, a paladin Magistrate at 51 and a w-elf ranger Outlander at 51?

What if appear to only play one or the other based on who is in power so as to not be at risk of dying?

That seems really bad because with a smaller playerbase it heavily tilts cabal wars and you wind up with 5v1 or worse 5v0.

I'm not a fan of that.


But on its own its not against the rules.

And I won't treat a given character any differently because of it.


If you're suggesting it *should* be against the rules or something, different discussion, different thread.

-Ish

i don't think it should be against the rules, either

i just don't think you should have any leadership type of position

and i also think if a player goes that route then they opt themselves out of any sort of reward, even including a role contest

OR, another way to put it, you guys should reward or give more attention to the guys who play one char regardless of the odds and encourage less fair-weather gaming

If you're trying to follow a religion, fewer alts the better. If it seems like it's a side character for you, we might not be as invested in your character and everyone loses.

If you're trying to get leadership, any alts you have are going to shoot you in the foot (IMHO). This will vary by cabal but generally speaking, if you want a reasonable shot at leadership, you shouldn't be playing a bunch of other characters on the side for any amount of time. I'd much rather give leadership to someone who is putting all their available time/effort into a single character than splitting it over three.

There is no requirement for how much you play. If you do have a lot of logins with very quick logins, there's a decent chance that at some point you may get pulled aside to ask what's going on. I would rather not be too specific, but based on what you're describing, I wouldn't be particularly worried. Just keep in mind not to be logging one character out, then quickly logging in another.

Generally, if your character isn't one that -other- characters aren't being impeded by your lack of playtimes, no-one's particularly concerned. Scion in general is rather tight on players, and alt characters will be frowned upon. Otherwise, I would say only things like cabal leadership and Empire Elite Sect Members (restricted #s of these) are going to be particularly concerned.

Beyond that, the major downside you'll run into with things such as cabal promotions, empowerment, or tattoos is that with lower playtimes your chances of interacting with those who you might need to go down as well. I would say I feel Imms generally make a particular effort to check on empowerment characters. Beyond that, there's nothing directly against it, though I think there is some human nature that the character who is around all the time will more likely get the attention than the one rarely seen, but that is generally out-shined by a well-played character.

Play when you can and enjoy yourself.

If you're asking because you've got a well known character that others depend on that you're not interested in due to like..pk range and you want to play something else, thats different.

If its literally just you have random times to play because of life, who cares, play what you want.

I think there's a current caballed character that's been leader 3 different times because of his availability coming and going.