Shofie

100% a red power ring. Shofie is the embodiment of anger. She might even wear it on her tail, like a certain kitty.

I run a tavern event and we always handwave the heck out of the value of gil. We don't actually charge actual currency either, we just rp it out. I figure the amount isn't really important, but the interaction. Does the roleplayer want to RP they are wealthy? Do they want to roleplay they have very little coin? We give them that power. Generally if someone asks how much something they ordered costs, we "hold up a few fingers" to indicate how much. Whether that's three gil or three thousand is left up to interpretation to the roleplayer, and we prefer to keep it vague like this. As far as how much gil my character would have on her at any given time, I'd say the "real world" equivalent of a few hundred bucks, give or take. She rolls around with enough money to purchase things in an emergency scenario, but not as much as someone who is exceedingly wealthy like she would be expected to be carrying.

I enjoy roleplaying, but after some negative experiences with people harassing me, I tend to be pretty reclusive. What I started doing instead was focusing on storybuilding instead, and it turns out, I really enjoy that a lot. There's also Discord/Skype rp and stuff like that!

It's a big "it depends". The world has a distinctly fantasy medieval feel to it, and it's unlikely the average citizen would have access to, or care so much about, personal cleanliness potentially. But there's nothing stopping you from saying your character is fastidious. My character works out daily, and does a lot of heavy lifting, and gets sweaty and gross. Her husband is extremely fastidious and insists she bathe after workouts so she doesn't get stinky. Left to her own devices, this is probably something she doesn't do as often.

I'm nonbinary and my main is female, but I have male characters I rather enjoy as well. I am comfortable playing either. I've not really run into problems with it, but I'm pretty reclusive and shy, and my characters aren't interested in finding romantic RP (one is married, the others I just don't do it with) so that shuts down a lot of people, I think, since they aren't looking for hookups or anything with my characters or me.

I can't speak for everyone, but here are some things that have proven to be reliable red flags for me: Controlling RP partners; i.e. If a partner insists you RP with them constantly. Doesn't want you to roleplay with other people ever. Gets upset if you do, or moves into the guilt trip because you did, like you "owe" them something now. Partners who guilt trip you: "It's been a long time since we've roleplayed! C'mon!" People who want to RP with me (or any artists) because they want free art. Constantly dropping hints I should draw a scene, etc.

Spear fishing. Spear optional.

Shofie is technically an establishment owner, occasionally pulling double duty as waitstaff/really bad cook. She's also up to other things, but shh.

How exactly, does one determine a PVEer from a RPer, by the way? How do they kick out PVEers? This isn't going to happen, but for the sake of curiosity, how on earth would Square Enix determine who is "only" a PVEer, and who is also a roleplayer? You can see why this wouldn't work, or ever happen, yea?

Eyeshine

I read that, but people seem to be up in the air on it for some reason. Either way, I'm not even going to really consider a serious move until I get hard confirmation that we'd get the same perks offered. I assume SE will post more about it the closer Stormblood gets, or shortly afterward when they open up the new EU realm(s) they were talking about.

I'm kind of in this category. I love roleplay, but because of a really busy work schedule, I don't get to do it very often. Even when I'm not actively roleplaying, I still prefer the rp community over non-rp communities. I find them nicer overall in general, the servers are usually more pleasant to run around on, and people tend to take more care considering their names (so you see less joke names, or offensive ones, etc). Overall, I just find that environment far more relaxing and pleasant.

Maybe, if they offered the housing refunds and exp incentives talked about for the EU realms. It's sort of ambiguous at the moment if those are going to apply to all transfers off high-pop realms, but I won't lie, it's sorely tempting to pack up and start somewhere fresh. We'll see how it goes come Stormblood, I suppose.

While these are all great points, the biggest detraction here is simple: No new roleplayers can get onto the server for the foreseeable future, and alternatives need to be discussed. Yea, it stinks we have to split people up, but....the alternative is what? People simply not roleplaying at all? I mean, if people can't get onto Balmung and they want to roleplay, their options become extremely limited to text posts in formats outside of the game at that point. While those work for some folks, that won't work for everyone. An alternative needs to be thought of, and the sooner, the better, so we don't have people scattered even further out on many other servers, and ideally only on one server. While in a perfect world, SE will open the realms back up in awhile and let people come back....I personally tend to doubt it anytime even remotely soon. People don't leave Balmung nearly as much as they want to come to it. They've been begging us for awhile now not to make characters on the server, and now they've taken pretty drastic action to stop it because it's gotten out of hand. SE isn't going to reverse this anytime soon. I imagine it took a lot for them to consider this action in the first place. The players of Balmung politely asking them to overturn the close isn't going to do it. Their are server/hardware issues potentially at stake here that we aren't privy to. Short of them taking other drastic measures that are probably also not very desirable, we're stuck with a closed server for the foreseeable future. I think it'd be lovely if SE designated official RP servers; that would help a lot with the confusion and malaise players have about where to go and what to do now.

There is a place, but considering they've been begging the players not to transfer on and to select another place, I doubt much will come of it. They've been trying to mitigate this for awhile, but decided to still allow transfers in since people were willing to pay for that, I suppose. I doubt they reached the decision to close the server lightly, and have been weighing the pros and cons of doing so for a long time. I really feel like Square Enix needs to designate official roleplaying servers and that would honestly help a lot. The general confusion by the playerbase on where exactly they should go now needs to be coalesced, and I think just designating realms as "RP" would go miles to helping give roleplayers the confidence to select a new place to go for roleplaying.