Since our registration system has been opened up again, this seemed like a good time to repost the current rules and norms of Song of Avaria here in one place, and just give a few pointers about what to expect.
We do expect everyone to abide by the rules, and very much hope that everyone will follow the norms we've established here as well. Pilgrim and I are both really happy with the culture and community that have grown up in SoA, as we've got a great bunch of players who are kind, considerate, creative, helpful, and generally accepting and patient both of their fellow players and of staff members. This is deeply appreciated, especially in a game like this where both the player base and the staff are small. We really hope to see this continue going ahead!
So, here are the rules and norms as they presently exist in alpha:
Rules
- Please use the XCARD system in-game and report anyone who isn't respecting the rules. Because this is alpha, more formalized policies are still being decided, but we want to cultivate an atmosphere of mutual respect and general kindness.
- No out-of-character bigotry of any kind. This includes slurs and jokes.
- In-character bigotry may exist, but do not propagate cultural stereotypes as facts and do present all bigotry as a flaw.
- No sexual assault between PCs or NPCs, though it can be a background theme.
- Please consider behavior undertaken in public areas of the game to be PG-13 rated, so do not be overly graphic. However, all players should be 18+. We encourage the use of the FTB (Fade to Black) command.
- Don't use out-of-character communication as a substitute for roleplay. Story is the goal of the game, and communication is story.
- Don't reveal others' alts and don't reveal your own to people who don't agree to know. Don't play two characters at the same time, and don't benefit one character with the other in any way.
- Report bugs, don't exploit them.
- Take a break if you need to; you won't face any serious loss if you do.
Norms
- Try to use the emote tagging system while roleplaying so that everyone sees their own recognition of the characters involved.
- Respect the pacing needs of your writing partners and don't throw out multi-paragraph emotes while others are having an argument in says. Similarly, if others are trying to write a detailed character development scene, you don't have to jump in and spam several short actions while they are typing. Our preferred emoting style is a middle ground of somewhat more detailed emotes mixed with shorter ones and says, but it's okay to adjust a little in a given scene to accommodate others' styles.
- Don't be AFK or idle out in a public space, and especially don't go AFK when actually in a scene with others. If you have to step away for a moment use XCARD GREEN; if you need to leave for longer, make a quick IC excuse and leave the scene to log out. Don't start RPing with others if you're already distracted. This is a matter of respect for other players and for everyone's immersion in the world. Also if you go AFK a lot people probably just won't want to play with you as much.
- All caps is considered yelling -- use asterisks or dashes for emphasis (slashes will attempt to use the emote tagging system).
- Use CONTACT to get close to someone if you want to emote touching them.
- Don't meta-emote about your character's thoughts -- emotes are a visual representation that others can react to. Use THINK for thoughts.
- Don't power-emote outcomes of potential physical struggles with another person; let the code decide what happens in a physical struggle.
- The IC section of the forums are not a play-by-post area, but neither are they a place for OOC discussion. When players post their individual posts there, you can discuss those posts in the OOC forum for discussing IC posts.
** People who are new to the game may also find it helpful to refer to the Setting page on the wiki, which gives a very basic outline on what the world of Avaria is like and what players can expect from it. **
We are in fact getting some new player applications coming in now -- hooray! I'm sure we're all excited at the prospect of having some new people around who can be dragged into chaos and shenanigans, and I hope to start working through these applications shortly.
That said, I do plan to trickle new players in a few at a time, rather than in a flood all at once (if we even get to flood stage). The first reason for this is to give new players a chance to acclimate to the existing player/game culture and get to know current PCs, rather than swamping the existing culture and player base as I've seen to great detriment elsewhere. The second and even more practical reason is just that it does take time to review and approve player applications, and I have a pretty huge number of things to spread a limited amount of time out over.
Presently I am handling virtually everything in SoA that doesn't involve Serious Coding, which means things like creating new items and shops and animals and plants, putting in jobs, building new areas, fleshing out existing areas and fixing typos, filling player requests and addressing PC's stories, fielding questions and petitions, doing events and interactions, plotting out Big-Picture Story, filling in and documenting lore, and a bunch of other stuff that I can't even remember right now! This isn't to make anyone feel sorry for me (though if anyone squeezes out a tragic little tear for the mistsparrow every now and then, it will not be scorned), but just to say that I have many different things I'm juggling at once, and also sometimes I may drop one (or more) of the balls. 
Important Note: That said, no one needs to feel bad about submitting stories or putting in queries for NPCs or making other requests! Please continue to do so as needed and desired. Just please be aware that I may not always have a super-fast response time. But your request will be on my radar and I will get to it!
Also, shocking and horrific confession, I do enjoy playing my multitudinous cast of Avaria NPCs, so sometimes I am not actually working really super-srsly hard but am just playing for fun. :)
That's all I have for now! I know everyone will be welcoming to our new players, and I hope everyone sticks around and also continues to have fun here in SoA, despite all the bugs and mess and general alpha-ness of things!