Let's talk about off-peak

[SMuz]

Today, I logged on to play. There were 4 other people online. I met 2 of those 4 people at different points that RL hour, and they just walked past me. Not an emote, not a look, just walked. This is pretty much the situation most of the time during off-peak.

I've checked a few past threads on off peak discussion, looks like I'm the only one who liked off-peak, and that was back when I played a Byn recruitment role and could literally recruit friends. I'm not in that situation now, and it sucks as there's often nobody to play with.

On the other hand, off-peak can turn into a bit of a clique. On the rare occasion I've met a well-developed character off-peak, it's been some impressive roleplay. Two off-peakers meeting often know that they won't be meeting anyone else, and spend a lot of time together talking about everything. I've probably learned about 50% of my in-game knowledge from off-peakers who had nothing to do and just blabbed about everything, from culture to medicine/recipes to zones to creatures. There was a time when my character did something bad, was caught by a templar, and it was some memorable roleplay. That templar would normally be flitting about meeting people, but in that time, he had time to spare, and it was fun.

I've probably spent more time on the GDB than in character, and it's mainly because most of my off-peak play is just tavern sitting, waiting for someone else to show up. On those moments with 4-15 players, people just flock to the main taverns like iron to magnets, and it's where all the roleplay is, if there's anyone in my city with nothing to do.

It's a problem that made itself worse.

• Players play a few hours a day.
• People flock to when most of the action is to get the most out of those hours.
• Leader roles have peak time availability as a requirement. Non-peak players can contact every leader for the whole RL week, yet never find any.
• Only the rare, hardcore 18 hours a day ones go both off-peak and on.
• Some characters will be overstretching their roleplay stamina, through a late hunt or meeting people or mudsex or whatever, and are available online. These people are tired and not in the mood to RP and will ignore characters they don't know.
• A non-peak player (Europe-Australia) logging on to Armageddon will find nobody on. They see 10 people online, but have no idea who they are because all the PCs look like NPCs to a noob. I was lucky to catch someone (Gunnerblaster) offpeak, otherwise I'd be playing another RPI. My sister and many other off peak friends said that the game seemed dead; I had to assure them that Arm was very active, just at different hours.
• Many people who log during off-peak do so to avoid people. Pickpockets, burglars, rinthis, gemmers, trespassers. They will give you this "I didn't do anything!" look/emote/speech, and quickly run off.

Except for those who are comfortable during that time period, it's often a RP wasteland. Some people tend to play in the twilight zone between on and off, and those people are often the ones that end up as good friends of my characters.


I've had the chance to play just about every mundane guild on off-peak. Trying not to be too IC about this, but if I am, please edit it out. To comment on the possibility of playing out the coded side of those guilds...

• Pickpocket/burglar: Almost ideal. It's a bit twinky to treat NPCs different from PCs (even though one of them is far more lethal), and you can play the role of a sneak comfortably without worrying about people catching you.
• Rangers: Good too, since they're designed to work fine solo. They can get many of the grebber/scout jobs for someone on-peak without having to meet often. They'll still do poorly for combat roles, but I've manage to branch quite a bit on one ranger from just outdoors combat.
• Merchants: Good, in clans with lots of people and an abundance of resources. Poor as an independent, as they can't find people to greb stuff for them.
• Warriors: Horrible, severely handicapped in both code and RP if you don't play on peak. Little chance for advancement, since they get little sparring, sometimes none for many IC days. Will probably have to get some practice as an independent warrior, and encourage someone form a shady guild to spar, until they can do some basic hunting. If you're playing an off peak warrior, I'd suggest picking a subguild or at least something which lets you solo RP.
• Assassins: As with the previous ones, poor military advancement, but great with stealth. But with a major exception... survival rates for one of the prime backstab training areas is much higher off peak, I don't have to explain why
• Magicker: I don't know, don't play them, but there seems to be a hell lot of them off peak for some reason, so I guess there's some appeal. They possibly get a bit more RP as usual though, as even I bend out of character a bit when there's literally nobody else to talk to. But a bit funny as we often roleplay ignoring each other for half a RL hour.

And... unfortunately, a lot of the roleplay opportunities you get is based on either contacts or coded ability. Since it's difficult to build contacts as an off-peaker, with none of the important PCs online, that leaves you with coded skills most of the time.


I propose one change.

Bring in more off-peak clan leaders who's expected to play more off-peak. I think the major military clans should have one. Probably Byn, the militias, and maybe Kurac (as it's the GMH that also functions as militia). It gives off peakers a chance for leadership. With more off-peak leaders, we could probably pull in the Europe-Asia-Australia players as well. And seeing how there's more criminals off-peak, it gives the soldiers something to do too and thieves to catch.

[Nyr]

I propose one change.

Bring in more off-peak clan leaders who's expected to play more off-peak. I think the major military clans should have one. Probably Byn, the militias, and maybe Kurac (as it's the GMH that also functions as militia). It gives off peakers a chance for leadership. With more off-peak leaders, we could probably pull in the Europe-Asia-Australia players as well. And seeing how there's more criminals off-peak, it gives the soldiers something to do too and thieves to catch.

There are off-peak leaders, and if you play any of the times that you post, you will find that there are people to play with as well as clan leaders that are around.  (Like now, for instance.  I see at least two.)

[Nechomacus]

I'll also chime in.  During the morning hours lately (12am-6am) there are clans hopping with people off-peak.  I guess it depends on your definition of off-peak here, but there it is.  You just have to find them.   

[jhunter]

I've been playing primarily off-peak lately.

[SMuz]

I dunno, maybe I've just been horribly unlucky the past month or so. Unfortunately, my main favored hour (at about 10 PM) has about 4-10 players online, so I'm getting most of my Arm interaction at 4-8 PM or around 2+ AM (it's 6 AM while I post this now), which is not comfortably done every day.

I think it would be very convenient to know who those off-peak leaders are. I've figured who many of them are by now, but most of my past characters just didn't fit the requirements (wrong birthplace, wrong race, etc). Of course, you get the valid counter-arguments that they don't want all the off-peakers in the same clan or that the leaders will die and move to another clan... but... sometimes it's just sad seeing someone idle in a tavern for hours straight just waiting for any clan to join.

I figure that if you have at least the militias always active off peak, everyone knows that they can make a militia character if they're stuck playing off-peak the next few months. And the people who want to play c-elves and thieves off peak at least know that there's a soldier out there who's going to be harassing them, and that they won't be all alone RP-wise. You wouldn't have to worry whether they'd be active if the leader dies, because there'd be a search for some other off-peak leader to replace them.

[Dakota]

I can tell you as a prime off-peak player (I'm usually one of those 10 or 4 or even 1 player on..), that having an off-peak clan leader is GREAT when combined w/ a peak one.

In a certain clan I had my 2nd character in I got REALLY lucky as 3 of us were off peak. W/ another PC I had, I found it nearly impossible to push major plots as many of the key ppl are like playing for 4 hours when I'm sleeping. But it can work.

One thing I do want to say that I completely disagree with.. Usually when I find someone off peak along a road or in a tavern or on a battleground.. the RP is amazing. Why? B/C we're a little bored with solo emoting and repeating commands, etc, so when you see someone it's like O_O! Lets make this scene have legs and RUN with it!

I've played @ all hours of the day since my time in arm nearly started a year ago and the best RP'ers I've meet were those that were playing during the daytime GMT +1 hours (i think they were vampires from the states ).

But yeah. IMO when you join a clan or before? Just make sure you ask the question "When during the week are you on duty?" and figure it out from there. Once I got stuck in a clan for 3 months and had to get an IMM to release my PC as all three of the PCs able to do so were super peak. That was awful.

[bartenderer]

Off-peak has always been fun for me. I find the late-night/early-morning crowd to be very good RPers for the most part.

[Semper]

Having played in a leader role before, it's sometimes tough when you usually play peak times, but also try to get in time for the off-peak players. Maybe I'm not logging in long enough during off-peak, but on casual strolls around the city-states when there's around 12-14 players online, I rarely find PCs there, or the PCs that are sitting in taverns are link-dead or idling and giving no responses.

How can a leader find more PCs during the off-peak when they're also restricted on where they can go (for example, a Noble can't just wander outside the gates or idle in the Gaj/Tembo's Tooth tavern) and on who they can interact with (for example, a well-to-do aide might never give a rats ass about a dirty Byn runner or someone obviously criminal in nature (dark cloak, black clothing, daggers, so on), but that's the only PC that's around!).

[Nyr]

In this particular case:  if you're posting on the GDB during times that you usually don't play, wouldn't it make sense to just play instead of posting and responding on the GDB about how this time of day is not preferable?

[Nyr]

Honestly, we don't often limit leader applications by time of day that they play the role, but by how much time they can put into the role.  There are times where this is a limitation, and usually that is imposed on the role by the rest of the clan (replacing a dead/stored leader from that time slot).  Generally, this time slot is going to be "peak;" there are more peak players than not, and more peak players in those clans than not--and so on and so forth. 

There are leaders here and there that butt up right against the edge of your sweet spot time slot or play during it, so I wouldn't worry too much about it, provided you are playing in more than 20-minute bursts.

[valeria]

A lot of the roles you suggest are attainable IC too.  No one is saying you can't play an off-peak militia leader or Byn Sergeant.  Though I recognize you might have a long road making it up that high when you have clan restrictions and are so very very off-peak.  No one is saying you can't do that, or can't apply when a role call goes out for leader character.  A lot of them say peak play times preferred but the way I read 'preferred,' that does not mean required, or that staff won't consider a good application.

[FantasyWriter]

In the years that I've played Armageddon, I've had several different sets of "normal play times."
Unless I am playing in a clan (doesn't happen very often other than tribes and sponsored roles), I rather -prefer- playing off peak for several reasons that I won't get into.

If you want to play in a clan off peak, you are pretty much just stuck looking around and waiting to meet leaders/employees or request-tooling staff to see what clans are active during you usual play time (assuming your times aren't jsut random)
If you want to play solo, but still have heavy interaction with the playerbase, I would advise the following:

• Write your PC with a "job" using a skill or set of skills that is highly needed with PCs. (subguilds can be -very- good for this)
• Examples: Specialized grebber or hunter, barber, stable boy, physician, herbalist, mount wrangler, locksmith (you'd be surprised how many legal/pseudo-legal uses this would have without being an apartment burglar), for hire guard and/or guide between cities, for hire personal guard for city folk, fletcher, loan shark, hauling/moving/delivery service (I would have loved to have something like this for my GMH leaders), messaging service, obsidian miner, lumberjack, party/event planner catering, apartment decorator, florist (there's a subguild for that, you know), toolmaker (newbie PCs, not to be confused with newbie playiers, will LOVE JOU)
• Be wary of anything that would draw negative attention from established competition, specifically cutting in on GMH business.
• Advertise your offered service/s on the in character board in your selected playing city/village/outpost (might want to include early/mid/late week availability respectively ). Even if a PC doesn't need your service at the moment, it gets your name and trade out there.
• Ignore guild sniffing. (You will get a lot of this trying to play a specialized PC.  People will want you to do things you're PC can codely do but ICly can't/doesn't. Or people believing you a magicker/bender for jobs that don't require coded skills.) If it gets to the point of you considering filing a complaint about it, you probably should.  This is not good roleplay on the sniffer's part, and is a large reason people don't play non-guild roles like these.
• The same can be done for -regular- services your PC would need. (such as a crafter looking for a supplier of raw materials or a traveling merchant to move your goods through.

[Cutthroat]

As a player that plays mostly during peak times but sometimes off-peak as well, playing a leader-type PC off-peak is so hard because sometimes, it seems like a big chunk of players are online to do their own thing. Not most or all of them, but usually enough that a leader isn't left with much else to do. And playing a non-leader off-peak, there's the struggle to find a clan or group that is active off-peak, because again, people seem mostly to be doing their own thing and there's little to no organization.

It's easy enough to say the problem is off-peak leaders or a lack of them, but ultimately, it falls on ALL off-peak players to roleplay with each other in proper ways and make things interesting.

FantasyWriter's tips are very good, and there are some more tips I would offer to an off-peak player:
- Try to condense the time you're playing into a single block. For example, if you find you're playing 30 minutes 3 times a day, try to find a way to get into a 90 minute session once a day instead. This will help you appear more active to people and give you a better chance of running into people.
- Try to keep your playtimes as regular as possible. When you're expected at 5AM-6:30AM EST every day, you'll be easier to find and interact with as you slowly establish contacts.
- Tavern sitting can be occasionally helpful for running into people. People are often more inclined to walk into a tavern (and stay in it) when there is a PC in there to interact with. Be that PC.
- If you find multiple clan members from different clans are active during your playtimes, consider finding unofficial jobs with clans rather than official employment. Being a sort of "free agent" will help you touch more people with your roleplaying efforts.

[SMuz]

I've played a few specialist PCs. They get hired. They meet people. But not fun. I've had far, far more fun as a casual pickpocket, than as a burly miner. The miner meets 10-15 people, had no conflicts, only friends who help him and buys his chunks of obsidian. He gets rich from his friends and contacts, lives happily, stored. The pickpocket knows 5 people, plenty of conflicts, eventually killed early, but more fun.

FantasyWriter's tips are very good, and there are some more tips I would offer to an off-peak player:
- Try to condense the time you're playing into a single block. For example, if you find you're playing 30 minutes 3 times a day, try to find a way to get into a 90 minute session once a day instead. This will help you appear more active to people and give you a better chance of running into people.
- Try to keep your playtimes as regular as possible. When you're expected at 5AM-6:30AM EST every day, you'll be easier to find and interact with as you slowly establish contacts.
- Tavern sitting can be occasionally helpful for running into people. People are often more inclined to walk into a tavern (and stay in it) when there is a PC in there to interact with. Be that PC.
- If you find multiple clan members from different clans are active during your playtimes, consider finding unofficial jobs with clans rather than official employment. Being a sort of "free agent" will help you touch more people with your roleplaying efforts.

I've done all of that. It's not quite.. fun. I've been that regular tavern sitter, and I've never been more frustrated at any game than when I sit hours there and meet nobody interesting. Tavern sitting is costly in OOC effort, thanks to food/water. It's not bad at all when playing a Bynner, but tedious with characters who have to work hard for their food.

Yes, you do make contacts, but most of the contacts you make are just not your type.. my dungsweeper is just going to be shunning the gemmer, and getting shunned by the lone soldier who's on at that time. We just sit there snubbing each other, until I decide to make friends with a breed/elf, because he's the only one who smiles to my char. And then he mysteriously disappears days later

I've done the unofficial jobs too with multiple characters. It's probably the only way too, since most NPC merchants rip you off. But in the end, it still feels like solo RP.

In this particular case:  if you're posting on the GDB during times that you usually don't play, wouldn't it make sense to just play instead of posting and responding on the GDB about how this time of day is not preferable?

Playing sleep-deprived is like playing drunk Results in dead characters, and typo riddled ones an hour after. I'm taking good care not to kill this one now, but still.. getting in char is quite a bit less effort to post a rant on the GDB and sadly, more fun. I do agree that there's some cool leaders around at those times of day, though, just that they're rather hard to find and get into contact with.

[FantasyWriter]

I've played a few specialist PCs. They get hired. They meet people. But not fun. I've had far, far more fun as a casual pickpocket, than as a burly miner.

My point was that you can do both.  Your guild and your "day job" don't have to be the same thing, and it's generally more fun when they aren't.

[SMuz]

I've played a few specialist PCs. They get hired. They meet people. But not fun. I've had far, far more fun as a casual pickpocket, than as a burly miner.

My point was that you can do both.  Your guild and your "day job" don't have to be the same thing, and it's generally more fun when they aren't.

Ahh.. ok, somehow I didn't think of that. Point taken

[Akaramu]

Here's my humble offpeak opinion:

There are two kinds of offpeak.

1) Around noon and the early afternoon GMT, when there are maybe 10 or less players logged in. This kind of offpeak is usually hopeless, the few people that are logged in will be idling and doing solo stuff - hunting while there is less risk of being raided with the low player count, practice spellcasting while there is less risk of someone breaking into the apartment and catching them, etc. Every once in awhile, there will be someone who can be roleplayed with regularly. Until they die. Which often happens fairly quickly. This is the kind of offpeak that I appreciate having other games for, unless I'm one of those rogue spellcasters, then I will practice casting spells while watching TV online.

2) The reasonably active offpeak (I call it semi-offpeak) has about 20-50 players logged in, and takes place a few hours before peak time until the start of peak time. Roleplay is found easily enough, and it's usually fun to play during these hours. BUT: there won't be many leaders active before peak time. Sure, there will be the occasional Byn sarge or Salarri who plays semi-offpeak, but if you absolutely must talk to Kuraci or noble XY to advance your plot you're probably screwed. This is the only thing that bothers me about semi-offpeak. If you're a high profile role yourself, and can't play during the real peak hours, advancing plots that require the involvement of certain political figures will be slow and frustrating at best. However, being a nobody who just wants to enjoy their life is easy enough, and fun as well.

To summarize: As long as you don't absolutely need to interact with specific people, semi-offpeak is tons of fun without frustration.

So it really depends on what kind of role you want to play. I've noticed that templars seem to be available during semi-offpeak quite a bit, while merchant family PCs and nobles are generally not. Kudos to those templars.  

[Semper]

Here's my humble offpeak opinion:

There are two kinds of offpeak.

1) Around noon and the early afternoon GMT, when there are maybe 10 or less players logged in. This kind of offpeak is usually hopeless, the few people that are logged in will be idling and doing solo stuff - hunting while there is less risk of being raided with the low player count, practice spellcasting while there is less risk of someone breaking into the apartment and catching them, etc. Every once in awhile, there will be someone who can be roleplayed with regularly. Until they die. Which often happens fairly quickly. This is the kind of offpeak that I appreciate having other games for, unless I'm one of those rogue spellcasters, then I will practice casting spells while watching TV online.

2) The reasonably active offpeak (I call it semi-offpeak) has about 20-50 players logged in, and takes place a few hours before peak time until the start of peak time. Roleplay is found easily enough, and it's usually fun to play during these hours. BUT: there won't be many leaders active before peak time. Sure, there will be the occasional Byn sarge or Salarri who plays semi-offpeak, but if you absolutely must talk to Kuraci or noble XY to advance your plot you're probably screwed. This is the only thing that bothers me about semi-offpeak. If you're a high profile role yourself, and can't play during the real peak hours, advancing plots that require the involvement of certain political figures will be slow and frustrating at best. However, being a nobody who just wants to enjoy their life is easy enough, and fun as well.

To summarize: As long as you don't absolutely need to interact with specific people, semi-offpeak is tons of fun without frustration.

So it really depends on what kind of role you want to play. I've noticed that templars seem to be available during semi-offpeak quite a bit, while merchant family PCs and nobles are generally not. Kudos to those templars.  

What are good roles to play during the 'true' off-peak, when there's 10-15 players online? I totally agree with you. It's been very hard finding PCs to interact with during this time. It feels like you have the whole game world to yourself during these times, since it's usually just you and the NPCs.

[SMuz]

What are good roles to play during the 'true' off-peak, when there's 10-15 players online? I totally agree with you. It's been very hard finding PCs to interact with during this time. It feels like you have the whole game world to yourself during these times, since it's usually just you and the NPCs.

Personally, I find the shady ones to be the best. Usually around half of those active chars are shadies, and there's a bigger chance of stepping on each other's toes. I like how they often have fairly high profile 'day jobs' as well, and both end up meeting each other hood up, sometimes running away when a NPC is yelling "Thief!" You end up making friends, but having a bit of a rivalry. Doubly interesting if you play a pickpocket in the militia.

You could also do a burglar, and find all those hidden rogue gickers. With quite a high chance of meeting another fellow burglar.

Also, rinthis are a lot more fun, since they're less likely to random backstab you, more likely to get in a tense roleplay, because they're so lonely.

Another rarer role is as some kind of guard for a grebber. Unfortunately, a lot of those grebbers will be gickers who want to be left alone. I'd really like to start some kind of miner/lumberjack's guild off-peak, where a group of miners/lumberjacks travel out together, looking for deposits, protecting each other from trouble, looting each other's bodies if needed. The scarcity of clans make it a bit more viable to convince noobs to be miners/lumberjacks.

[Shepard]

I have always been curious, when is peak hours and non-peak hours?

I used to log from 11am est - 11pm est, and I've always been able to keep busy. Lately I've been taking a moment away from ARM, but am in my transition back now, and I often apply for leadership roles. However, if you let me know when the off-peak hours are in EST, I can try to see about jumping in at those times to raise the player interaction.

[SMuz]

About 6-9 AM EST is worst. It gradually starts picking up from then on.

[Semper]

I have always been curious, when is peak hours and non-peak hours?

I used to log from 11am est - 11pm est, and I've always been able to keep busy. Lately I've been taking a moment away from ARM, but am in my transition back now, and I often apply for leadership roles. However, if you let me know when the off-peak hours are in EST, I can try to see about jumping in at those times to raise the player interaction.

There's usually about 10-15 players on from about 9:30, gradually building over the day. After 12 is when people seem active, and come out from their apartments and solo-hunting, and around 5 is when pre-peak begins. Peak would likely start around 9 to about 2am. At least this is from my perception lately.

[As I was replying to Shepard's post, my times are in EDT.]

[Xeran Van Houten]

You all need to clearly state -TIME ZONES-.
I only see EST in one spot, I think, though usually when staff talk time, they mean eastern. (Though I'm pretty sure we're in xDT right now...)

6 am to some of you is 3 am to me, or 12 noon to others. It's confusing, and sort of necessary if you're going to talk about times.

[msninja]

I'm usually on from around 8-10pm GMT. There are usually around 20-30 players around at this point. I'm comfortable with that. I've met enough players to know who's who at those times and I think most people know my PC now too. I start to get tired anytime from about 11pm-midnight, though sometimes I can play til 2-3am (rare though, since I am working more often now).

[solera]

If the time you are playing is dead, how about playing sometimes at the other end of the day, ie an hour before breakfast?  No RL interruptions either.