CREATING NEW CHARACTERS
When creating a new character, please ensure that you have an available Character Slot or Token already purchased or available on your account before you post their application. You can see how many slots or tokens you have on your player account profile page. If a slot or token is won, gifted, or awarded, we will send it to your player account. Otherwise, it's up to you to purchase the Character Slot or Token in the Barc Shop.
All players start with two free slots, which never get taken away even during Activity Checks. However, these slots don't show up physically in your player inventory given they are by default yours; It's safe to say that you have however many slots in your inventory plus two, for your two starting slots.
One-time-use items, like Tokens, will be removed from your inventory when the character using it is accepted.
Regular Character Slots are permanent, though can be removed if the character using it is deactivated due to inactivity during our Activity Checks. For more information about this, see below.
ACTIVITY CHECKS & ACCOUNT DELETION
At the start of each new month, Infidelis performs a background Activity Check where we count every character account's posts for the previous month. This data helps us keep track of who is active and who is not. Players with inactive characters are sent a warning and given time to improve their activity.
Should a player not heed the warning sent to them and fail to improve their activity, their offending account(s) are deactivated. At this stage, we rely on your involvement. If you want the deactivated character(s) back, we need to see you improving your activity. If we receive no word from you and don't see you posting with your other accounts (if you have others) during the next month, we will delete your account(s) during the next activity check.
Account Deactivation & Consequences
Once a character account is deactivated, the player loses that character slot forever. Players may not earn, purchase, or win character slots for one month following the date of deactivation. However, once the month is up, they may obtain a character slot to get their deactivated character back.
Additional slots in a player's inventory can be used to replace this character's slot after one month; however, doing this leaves you down one character slot than you'd normally have, as it'd replace the removed one, whether it was earned or purchased.
Regular character slots can be used to replace the slots of deactivated characters using tokens; you wouldn't have to purchase another Permaban Token to reactivate your rare breed character. You'd only need to have a character slot available for that character.
CHARACTER DROPS
We encourage everyone to think about the characters they want to play or want to adopt and consider whether that character would be right for them and interesting enough to play long term. If you want to "test-drive" a character before making a commitment, let its owner (whether IF Staff or another player) know that you'd like to do so in the non-canon Genesis board! Players who drop and switch characters often may be banned from making characters for a while!
A Kenneled Character still uses their slot, so be mindful of what slots are available to you!
SCARCENESS, ABSENCES, AND HIATUSES
Players who think they'll be away from the site for a period of time should post a note in our Member Updates board. Please let us know what to expect! It's always good to let your roleplay partners know what's going on.
SCARCENESS
Feel like your activity is going to falter over the next few weeks? Perhaps your replies will slow down or you won't be on as much. And that's a-okay! Let us know you'll be around, but scarce.
Something big might be going on in your life and you might feel like you may be totally absent for a short period of time. This is generally mentioned when it's under a month. You might still lurk around the site, but for the most part, your replies and posts will come to a halt while you're away on your absence.
LONG-TERM HIATUSES
We have a pretty lenient hiatus policy that you can utilize if you think you need to take a break from IF. You must request a hiatus in General Maintenance with the form. Otherwise, it won't be 'official' and will be ignored.
The maximum amount of time you can take away from the site in total is 3 months (real-time).
Your accounts will be locked while you're away, but not deleted during our Activity Checks, and your characters will be NPC'd; however, adoptables may be reclaimed at the owner's discretion. NPC'd characters will be demoted from High Rank positions.
If three months has passed and you have not returned, you will be contacted by staff and asked if you'd like to rejoin. When you're contacted, you will be given 15 days from that date to reply or rejoin. If you haven't replied or joined by the 15th day, your accounts will be deleted.
We ask that members do not request a hiatus unless they feel that they will be away longer than a month's time.