Mizahar's people opinions?

[Lelio]

Hello everyone,

As you can all very well see, I'm a newcomer. I've Roleplayed on various forums and games for quite a few time (and have often been disappointed :/) so I wanted to ask some questions to the players here to avoid creating another "ghost character" (playing for like one week and then going away like a thief), which I find to be quite annoying and disrespectful for the other characters I would be chatting with.

Oh and by the way I'm French, so if I say something weird or hard to understand, feel free to rectify it or ask for more details.

First of all, I did read all the Starting Guide and know my basics. My first question would be: Is it necessary to really know the world very well (a.k.a. Read the entire wiki) before starting to RP? I know it should be advised, but I would like to know if it's possible to like, uncover the world from the eyes of the character? (Yea, I do plan on making my character somewhat - if not totally - ignorant).

2nd: As I already said, I'm French, so I might be lacking vocabulary and many other things. Are people here quite picky on the quality of the RP? (I mean, I've been on some RP forums where people where shunned and quite left alone because their spelling sucked).

3rd: Thing is, there is only one forum where I felt really "in" its world, and played on it for four years (and which is now closed, unfortunately) - I won't even mention MMORPGs, since it lacks the story/background/description in the RP and often restricts itself to dialogs. So... What's your opinion on Mizahar? Is it really great? (I feel like it's a dumb question since yea, most of you if not all are probably RPing here because it's great). Are there particular flaws or good points that differentiates itself from other forums?

4th: I see that there's a pretty huge community - if we're to look at numbers. However, I've also seen forums like this where only a handful of players were still active and in the end, it was mostly chatting with characters you already knew, giving an impression of a closed circle where just everyone knows everyone and not of a wide world. So the question is, is the community very active? (By lurking on the forum I see that there's a pretty huge amount of RP threads currently active but I wanted to know if it wasn't just the same players with their 5 characters doing all the animation).

5th: One of the greatest flaws (in my opinion) in forums is the question of time and location. By location, I mean some forums have so many sub-forums that in the end, characters were so spread out you ended up with small closed circles (like I said before) or having two or three places full with people with the 20 others places just empty. By time, I mean how to keep track of when the particular RP thread was happening? (and sometimes leads to weird time travelers or people that can pop out in two places at the same time). Is the general rule: date of the 1st post of the thread = date of the RP action?

6th (I'm so sorry to be asking so many questions): From a rapid lurk into the RP forums, I've seen that everyone arbors fantasy style of avatar. Are other avatar (such as those which are manga-style) banned or shunned on?

Uh, I might be adding some question later - sorry in advance - and thanks for those who will take the time to answer! I do look forward to it, since Mizahar seems like a great RP forum and I'm quite impatient to plunge into it.

[Book__wyrm]

To answer your questions...
1)Well, no. The most important thing is to familiarize yourself with how the world and forums works, read up on your race and starting location, and any skills you want.

2) Well, judging by the lack of grammer and spelling mistakes in this post, I think you'll be just fine. Good writing skills are preferable, but we won't jump all over you the second you spell something wrong.

3)Well, what can I say. Mizahar is awesome. The thing about it is that it's original. It's a whole new world, just waiting to be explored.

4)Well, and exact number is impossible, as we allow multipul accounts here. However, I can say with certainty that there are a great many active people here willing to roleplay with you here. Ignore the number on the front page, it's very misleading.

5)For that, I recommend that you go check the lore page on timestamping and calender.

6)Well, I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean what I think you mean, then my answer is this. As I've said, Mizahar is original. Many of the fantasy avatars wouldn't work properly with our characters. So if you can find an appropriate avatar, go for it!

Feel free to ask more questions. We like inquisitive people

[Lelio]

Thank you for these answers, I just figured out that there is a time system like in the forum I used to RP on - season system, that is. As for the avatar, I've seen all kind of avatars after looking around for a while.

For now I think I'll get on to the Character Sheet and I'll try to find a thread where I can fit in.

[Book__wyrm]

No problem. If you have any other questions, anyone will be happy to help out. Although big questions might want to go to the Help Desk.

~Book

[Tarot]

Hello Lelio,

and welcome to the game. You don't need to know everything when you start out. This is a highly scattered world in which civilization is just starting to get back on its feet. It can be thought of as city-states separated by vast stretches of mostly-empty, dangerous wilderness. Most people would only really know their own home city and rely on rumors or second-hand information about what lies beyond. Of course, PCs are often the exception to the rule with their traveling ways, but it's not mandatory.

A lot of people here speak English as a second (or higher) language, myself included. I think the general level of writing here can be called literate, but we don't throw snobbish fits at people... plus, your English seems just fine to me.

What makes Mizahar great? Please bear with me, I'm hugely biased here. Originality. Consistency. Character development. The community is as friendly as a writing community can humanly be. Is the site for everyone? Probably not. Generally, those who come here trying to import a pre-made character find they have a hard time doing so and tend to give up. Some people can't start out powerful enough to be badass and tend to give up. Some people just can't get into the setting because they are partial to high fantasy of the traditional kind. It all boils down to tastes in the end.

I honestly don't know how many people read the forum every week, but for a single-world non-fanfic forum we are doing very well. We are only just over one year old, too, and most people don't use all of their accounts. Some just stick with the one. Turnover is high and new people join every week - some are really talented! Like Book said, the users on the front page are the total of all registered accounts. I'll probably prune them at some point.

We use timestamps on the first post of a thread, and ask players to keep travel times into account (this is a topic we're still working on and improving). In general, we encourage people to start one more character rather than popping all over the place with the same PC, but as long as it fits the timeline, it's just the PC's business.

You can have manga-style avatars. Some members dislike manga and will roll their eyes at the sight, but you can have anything as your avatar that doesn't violate the terms of use.

[Elhaym]

Hello there! I'd also like to throw my .02 in.

The first thing i'll address is the manga/animeish avatar and character picture issues. I also am a fan of manga and some anime, and my drawing style is essentially manga style. Yes, some people don't like manga art for character info, but then again, some people don't like using pictures of real people whom they associate with other things (movies, political views, etc etc) as characters. I got around this by drawing my character and defining her looks, and searching until I found a model that matched my characters look irl. I use both drawings and photos =)

Why is Mizahar great? No one shoots hadokens that explode and destroy everything in their path their first day. No one moves faster than the speed of light. Characters are balanced by an actual skill system much like a real online RPG, which makes the RP process much more fun and rewarding. The creators of this story have forged a world with it's own lore, and there is a ton of wiggle room to create a truly unique character.

Several forums are pretty empty at the moment. There are some areas that simply don't have anyone playing that race, or there are so few that they prefer not to RP with 1 person, so they move. Despite that, there are several areas that are highly active.

I will cut myself short in saying that I don't think you will find a better place to RP. I searched off and on for a couple years, and never got back into RPing because I couldn't find anywhere that wasn't a ghost town, or ridiculous. My search is over. =)

[Jokor]

Well I second most of what the person above me said about the character balance.

Also I enjoy that this isn't some Tolkien ripoff. I mean at first it was confusing so I chose a human.(Not being able or wanting to play other races.
But After reading some more I can say it's going to be very interesting!