Oh hey, I know you <_<
I did forget to add a few things while we chatted last night but it's good to see a lot of them answered here. For instance...FCs are generally optional as the community is really good and Linkshells (essentially private chat channels) exist for locating RP as well. As for gear, yep it's mostly leveling up but there was a point made earlier that begs to be repeated...gear drops from dungeons are aesthetically GREAT for this game. While a lot of them are best for the level they drop at stat-wise, they really are some of the best looking gearsets in the game. Just be prepared to do dungeon grinding if you like a specific set since they're drops and not token-based like in GW2.
Other than that welcome welcome and have fun ^^
I did forget to add a few things while we chatted last night but it's good to see a lot of them answered here. For instance...FCs are generally optional as the community is really good and Linkshells (essentially private chat channels) exist for locating RP as well. As for gear, yep it's mostly leveling up but there was a point made earlier that begs to be repeated...gear drops from dungeons are aesthetically GREAT for this game. While a lot of them are best for the level they drop at stat-wise, they really are some of the best looking gearsets in the game. Just be prepared to do dungeon grinding if you like a specific set since they're drops and not token-based like in GW2.
Other than that welcome welcome and have fun ^^