by Dariel on December 3rd, 2012, 7:17 pm
Seeing as I've only recently been there myself, I think what worked well for me is this:
1) Pick a city that speaks to you. Where you think you'll feel comfortable. This both applies to the theme and mood of the city and population. Some cities are busier than others and you'll likely never get bored. Others have smaller populations but that also allows you to be in the picture about everything. Of course, it should make sense for your character to be where they are. If you're a Drykas starting out in the Spires how they got there alone would make for an interesting story.
Some of the cities seem practically deserted, which is a shame. Those might not be the best places to start.
2) That's the lovely thing about working in a forum structure. Technically there's no rush. Some people can post several times a day, others only a few times a week. With thread time being relative to real time there's never any pressure. That said, jumping into an active Open thread with a slow posting schedule might not be beneficial to anyone involved, and you should communicate longer absences to people you're threading with.
3) A city will usually have a thread for IC introductions. Moot if you've lived there for a while in a lot of cases. Otherwise, I think the best way to go about it is to at least start a Solo thread first. Give people some insight into your character, who they are and what they do, and offer a sample of your writing at the same time. Read other people's stuff, find out who and what interests you and PM people you'd like to thread with to set something up. Or they PM you, of course. Everyone I've talked to so far has been awesome, but if you're in a busy city with a limited schedule you might still want to be a bit picky. In a smaller city, you can just thread with everyone.
