ok my group have been wondering on where characters are considered to be. Are Characters considered in the staging area or are they outside of it (not in the card pool of course.)?

They are in the staging area.

Note that even if you have mulitple copies of your character in play, they all count as one card except for for Yi Shan and one or two other cards.

is there any official ruling for your reply? I mean your probabaly right but I cant just come back to my guys and say "hey some dude on the internet said they are in the staging area..." if you have a link or whatever for this I'd greatly appreciate it.

Luthon said:

There does not need to be an "official ruling" because it is explicity stated in the Advanced Game Rules, which are available for you and your friends to read here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/UFS/Support/UFS%20Advanced%20Rules%20ver%202.0.pdf

If the link doesn't work, go to the UFS main page, click on the support tab, and scroll past the Path of the Master video to the Rules section.

This is specifically illustrated in both the diagram in the starter deck rules, as well as the full color illustration in the AGR at the start of section 4 "Zones of Play"

To further support this the rules explicitly state:

2.1.12 When additional copies of a character card are placed in a staging area (See 4.3 Staging Area), they are considered one card for the purposes of committing. (See 2.8 Ready & Commit.)

2.1.13 When there are multiple character cards in a staging area (See 9.9), they are considered one card for all effects, except those that specifically count or reference the number of characters in play.

9.9 If the card is a version of the character card you are playing, it is moved to the staging area.
9.9.1 If the card is a character card with a name different than the one being played, it is placed
in the discard pile.

ah that makes so much sense thank you very much!