Skae

I don't do any kind of switching between jobs when I RP. The character may have multiple jobs or classes, but switching between them is purely game-mechanics. So if my character would ICly be both an archer and a lancer, then they know how to use spears as well as bows, and ... well, that's it. Worth noting is that what jobs/levels you have OOC have very little or nothing to do with what the character can do IC.

There is no big problem RPing as a Red Mage. X'Rhun Tia - the guy who teaches us the Red Mage skills - is perfectly willing to teach other people as well. We know he met and trained Alisaie at some point between the end of ARR and the start of Stormblood for example. It is also concievable that there are some other experienced Red Mages alive out there.

It used to be hard to impossible to create a character on Balmung, but nowadays it is probably not much more difficult to do so on Balmung than on any other well-populated server. That means it will likely be closed for character creation during peak hours (evenings NA time), but during off-peak hours it will usually be possible to create a character. With the establishment of additional RP servers (Mateus and Omega) as well as the incentives from SE to move away from overpopulated servers, Balmung is no longer quite as overcrowded as it used to be. Balmung used to be THE roleplaying server, with roleplayers from all timezones playing there. While some people have moved away I expect you can still find some RP there during all hours even if events will mostly happen during NA evenings. Those who did move mostly did so either to Mateus, or to Omega for the European players. Since Balmung and Mateus are in the same datacenter you can also use the world visit system to jump between them to attend events if needed.

I do not remember seeing anything implying that soul crystals are an Allagan creation, although I suppose it is possible they invented the first ones. Be that as it may, people in the current day certainly know how to create new soul crystals (as evidenced by the MCH questline.) In most cases soul crystals are simply a tool to accelerate the learning process, and not only for aetheric stuff. There are one or two jobs were it is implied you actually need the soul crystal for one reason or another, but for the vast majority of jobs a soul crystal is not really necessary, it "merely" lets you master the job in a matter of months or years rather than the decades it would take without one - this by letting the wielder draw upon the memory impressions recorded on the soul crystal by previous users. .

No, you don't need that. Some kind of backstory is nice to have, but it doesn't have to be more than a paragraph of text - and it can be a very short paragraph at that. As for the character's future story, there is absolutely no need to have any of that planned out at all - and if you do make any plans, be prepared to revise them continously.

We know very little about how half-breeds work in the game. So far I think we have only seen two such in the game - Hilda who is a mixed midlander hyur/elezen and who looks like a hyur with pointy ears, and Arenvald who is a mixed Garlean/highlander Hyur who looks like a highlander. I don't know about Rabanastre, but there are certainly Roegadyn native to other parts of the continent of Othard. They are not Sea Wolf or Hellsguard roegadyn though, but belong to some third, unnamed, clan. Thanks to the actions of Louisoix, the Seventh Calamity had very little direct effect outside Eorzea.

While there is racism in Eorzea - in particular in Gridania - we have seen no evidence of any miqo'te getting ridiculed due to their choice of tribal or city living. Also, while that couple from the Wanderer's Palace questline is often brought up around here, that is also just about the only time in the game where a mixed-race couple are being shown as controversial. On the other hand we have plenty of cases of romances or courting in the game where the people involved are of different races, and nobody objecting to the romance based on their races - although in several cases there are objections on other grounds.

Also, while lots of dungeons and raids would be hard to fit into RP "as-is" unless you RP as the WoL with friends, lots of them can be used as stand-ins for some other place. Trying to fit "raiding" in general into an RP framework would require some severe mental gymnastics and plenty of hand-waving. Fitting specific dungeons into an RP plot can easily be done however.

I think it is safe to assume that the cultural and behavioral differences between ALL the spoken races and subdvisions thereof are to 99% simply down to culture, i.e. "nurture." This is no different than humans in the real world who have a lot of differences in culture and appearance despite having very little genetical variance.

Main difference between Mateus and Balmung in terms of RP is that many (not all) of the groups and people on Balmung have been established there for years, building up shared history and relationships. Mateus is a lot newer as an RP community so you will find far more up-and-coming FCs and more new people in general. Which is preferable is very much a matter of taste. In type of RP there is no significant difference. Many of the RPers on Mateus came from Balmung in the first place, so it is only natural that they would be similar in how people play.

A few comments: Most RPers do not consider Fantasia potions to exist IC. Not a 100% consensus on that though. Playing as the Warrior of Light is generally strongly frowned upon. Having the Echo is okay though. The Duskwight/Wildwood split among Elezen is a uniquely Gridanian thing. The elezen in Ishgard are technically a third subgroup of elezen in their own right - with some of them looking similar to Duskwights and some similar to Wildwoods. .As far as we know there are no clans of Viera living in Eorzea. Vast majority of them live in and around Dalmasca on the continent of Othard, but individuals can be found in other parts of the world. As for Astrology, there are two branches of that. There is Ishgardian Astrology which focuses on just one star, the Dragon Star, to try to predict the movements of the dragons. Then there is Sharlayan Astrology which is a much broader and more useful discipline. It has recently been introduced to Ishgard, and thus to Eorzea, against strong opposition from people who do not like change. Most of the information about this found in the Astrologer job quests.

Soul Crystals are generally treated as an IC thing. Exactly how they work varies a bit from job to job, but mainly they just help accelerate the learning process. Now as to the question if it is plausible for our characters to IC have one or more of the Jobs - that varies a bit from Job to Job. Some jobs are very restricted as to who can have them for one reason or another, like WHM or BLM. Others, like MCH or PLD are not nearly as restrictive, and are perfectly plausible for characters to have IC. If your character have mastered multiple jobs you can expect other players to look askance at you. Not that it is impossible to have done so, but very few people would have managed to do it.

They can't use the World Visit feature to get onto Omega. After the EU data center expansion Zodiark and Omega ended up in different data centers. The 90-day waiting period may or may not apply. Zodiark was changed from a Preferred server to a Standard server on April 2. Any characters created on Zodiark after that point will not have to deal with any 90-day waiting period.

I rather hope not. There is still plenty of room on Omega, so there is absolutely no need for a second EU rp server currently, and if another was added it would be better to have it in the same datacenter as Omega so people on either could visit with the upcoming world visit system.

As a European I find lots of RP on Omega. Not quite as much as on Mateus or Balmung, but plenty enough. You will want to join the Discord to find it though. (There should be an invite link somewhere else on this site.) I also play some on Mateus and Balmung, and I have not found the extra network latency to be a signficant problem. So to answer your question - no, the game is not dead at all for europeans who enjoy both PvE and RP.