A friend of mine just joined the site and, after creating a character, was a bit confused about being unable to respond to my PM. Turns out they didn't have an active character is why!
When they jump in and first create a character, the site should go ahead and make it their active character to help them jump in and make a splash effortlessly without being held up by something confusing and weird like this. (Many people are coming from sites where you're not expected to do this!)
created: 15 July 15 at 06:02 AM (build: 7/4/2015 5:35 AM beta)
Wrecked Avent Site Administrator
If they have to do it themselves, they will necessarily learn about how that is a Thing You Have To Do here, and learn how to do it as well. I could see setting it by default for convenience, but it's really just going to delay this pain whenever they make a second character.
Just invited someone else to join and they had the same problem. It's confusing, so if it's not by default, it should at least be guided.
I recently invited a friend who made a profile and because they didn't automatically have an active one, they couldn't even access the dropdown that had the settings which would allow for them to ever set their active profile. I think that this needs to be put in place, not just because it could be confusing for new users, but because I feel like that detail in particular was a bit of an oversight.
Wrecked Avent Site Administrator
Note: It is still possible to access the page wherein you set the active profile if you do not have one. If you see where the current character selector is now, it is simply replaced by a link to your account settings. There, you can set your active profile. It is not the same mechanism as the character dropdown, but it still works.
Apparently it didn't show up for them at all, which was weird.
Wrecked Avent Site Administrator
The dropdown does not appear, but in its place, a link to account settings, with your account's name, instead of a short picture of an avatar.
That sounds like a clunky way to do things, especially if they aren't aware this is a thing they can do and need to do.
When someone has a profile but no active character they should instead have an ostentatiously attention-grabbing prompt in the header: "set your active character!" - clicking this should expand character select, and there should be another ostentatious arrow saying "pick your character!" inside there.
Got something to say?
Why don't you register and participate?
Litphoria has a unique community feedback system, where the community decides what profile options are available, and what order new features are developed.