To fix permadeath

[johnlewismcleod]

Horses are semi-excluded from the perma-death rules. While they do indeed remain dead, we may still flog them as if they weren't. Until their morale improves, of course.

[LenweTon]

The early days of any PC tends to be solo or boring (not my case because I found Lotus and Xujjia), I have experience with that and in that cases I always fall in the same: Crafting! Let me give two examples:

1. NWN1 @ Nordock server in Argentina:
My first character was an alternate version of Keldorn Firecam of Baldur's Gate 2. He was a Paladin who failed on his task of protecting his wife from the Beholder cult and left Amn to find redemption.
My first day on the server was boring because all saw me as a Level 1 character. But a DM told me about the CNR Crafting System. Then I spent one whole week crafting armors and weapons, melting ore, doing ingots. During that days I met another player who was in the same situation as me, he dedicated to be an Enchanter. So, during another week, we went to the mines to gather minerals and gems and while he craft gems I crafted the socketed armors and weapons to enchant. One month later we reached Level 11 and started adventuring with our own crafted equipment. And that launched us to the public knowledge of other characters and finally we integrated ourselves on the society.

2. NWN2 @ Necrosis:
Being a post-apocalyptical setting and a PW with 0 XP per kill and only 200 XP per day (100 XP because RP and 100 XP because being a frecuent player) without any motivation for adventuring and with the sword of Permadeath around us everytime (Because we had a Vitality bar, what goes down if your char doesn't feeds or drinks water, works hard or dies) the only thing to do what gave me some emotion was the crafting system, the constant challenge to gather minerals, killing the beetles who tried to kill me, avoiding the rock falls to have the legendary "Silver Longsword +0". I found a way to give a meaning and objective to my char and endured 2 months on the PW, then I got tired of being a John/Jane Doe.
Even the high villain PC was Level 5! *-.-*

--

Summarizing, Crafting system avoids premature deaths

[Ithildur]

The early days of any PC tends to be solo or boring (not my case because I found Lotus and Xujjia)

My experience on most servers has been that's true mostly if you intentionally RP a character that generally avoids contact with others. And as you said yourself, you found others to RP with... you almost make it sound as if that's rare or unusual. The early days of any PC can be vastly improved if someone makes some attempt to interact with other PCs/players. If you're from a timezone where the playerbase is nonexistent then I can understand, but otherwise...

[Mikayla]

No matter what level you are at, whether its your "early days" (or, um, early months in the case of a drow PC like mine) or whether you are much higher in level, its all about the people you role-play with. NWN1 recently closed its doors on ALFA, but I'd not played my NWN1 PC (who was 14th level, not counting drow LA) in almost a year. Why? Well, I didn't really have a solid group that I felt a part of. On TSM in NWN2 I started off strong with Vellya as a member of the Red Knights (we had 3 full time members then, and a number of others cycling through) but then Sword Saint Musashi and munmun took off for greener pastures and ... well ... bit by bit, I fewer people to play with and less and less a connection to them. I tried coming back, months later with Vellya, but the character bored be and I could not make a connection to her, or from her to others, and she was 5th or 6th level. I had more fun with her when she was 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

Now, with Lotus, I am first level again but having a great time because of the folks I role-play with (and good thing to as at my current rate of advance I won't hit 2nd level for another 4-5 months). So, if I have any advice for surviving the "early days" and enjoying ALFA at all, its to take your idea about the early days one step further - its all about the other people you role-play with, no matter the level. Of course, that is my personal view and may well not fit everyone to be sure. Such is life.