Hydaelyn Role-Players

I figured since everyone is doing it because I have questions of my own, I said to myself 'Ryanti, you need to start a question thread too!'

I thought it was a great idea to categorize my questions about RP and game stuffs.

My first question: As we know, the class systems in ARR allow for one character to max level in any class he/she wants and switch out at any time. Let's say longevity catches up to your character, and you find out that, holy crap, you have 4 classes to max level.

How would you RP that? The easy way out would be to just say, oh, he/she learned the style of 'x' or learned 'x' magic or.. y'know.. followed that field of study.

But I can easily see it going overboard and everybody being proficient at everything.

What I normally do is give my character a primary field and then like.. have him be proficient in a few other things with less emphasis, and then leave it from there.

I think it depends a lot on how relevant it really is for your character. So, more or less a matter of having a specialty or two and a variety of other fields of study that just aren't as important in the grand scheme of things. One of those enforced bits of gameplay and story segregation, like how your character doesn't suddenly become dumber when he switches from Thaumaturge to Marauder.

(02-28-2013, 12:09 AM)Ryanti Veanysus Wrote: [ -> ]But I can easily see it going overboard and everybody being proficient at everything.

I don't think many do this, but I've seen enough that do that it's something of a put-off and comes across somewhat Mary Sue.  Many of us from 1.0 have many of our jobs leveled up to 50 - in some part because there just wasn't much to do after we'd leveled the jobs we most enjoyed and explored all the content.  I don't think that needs to be translated into RP though.  I think actual expertise in a particular discipline's nuances usually comes from years of practice rather than a couple weeks of PLing or XP parties.  In the RP world when someone is suddenly a master of martial arts one week, and the next week a gifted archer, and the following week excels at black magic - that sort of raises a few red flags for me.

Like Rhio said I think it's most realistic to choose one or two points of specialty and then have a few "dabble" things.  To give an example (because I love those), Eva is a white mage by profession with some skill, if not expertise exactly, with a lance.  If a particular event calls for her to wield an axe I will RP complete and utter ignorance.  She thinks they're clumsy weapons and has never even bothered to learn to wield one.  That said, my marauder/warrior is level 50 and I understand how to play the job well enough OOC.  I just don't need for that to transition into RP for any reason.

As a footnote, a few of us are working on a sort of "handbook for RP" - sort of a set of helpful guidelines generally geared towards newer RPers (or seasoned RPers who may be new to the Final Fantasy environment) which we're hoping to post up within the next week or so.  Your question has actually given me an idea for a section to add to that, so thank you!  

I have to agree that it all shouldn't translate into character as masteries, although beyond what's been stated here, one could go with the "Jack of All Trades" idea, and have a bit of proficiency in a lot of things BUT have no main specialty that is mastered. This gives you an IC reason for cycling between jobs a lot, but doesn't tread into Mary Sue territory because you either only know the basics to the class or are slightly proficient at it, which isn't over powering when done tastefully.

Also, if you go from one mastery to another, there's always the option of RPing learning that new mastery; this, however, takes time that a lot of players don't really consider. I don't think I'd balk at someone who took an entire year to RP out going from a master Archer to a master Conjurer, even less so if they took longer than that; I would, however, not buy that it only took a few months.

Just some additional food for thought!

Next question!


Beyond RP, which I will be doing, obviously, I'm considered a man of many colors when it comes to MMO's. I RP. I PVP. I OOC.

What I mean by that is, I alternate. Usually, when I log into a MMO, I'm with friends whom I either talk to in guild chat (in this case, LS.. ) or do things with (quests, raid, crafting, pvp, etc.). Sometimes I go on general chat and just live it up, sometimes I meet new people, sometimes I *dot dot dot* whatever.

I noticed a lot of members here are heavy, heavy roleplayers. Some wouldn't even be OOC at all, ever. While I have to say that while I RP, I RP really heavily, which means I get really into it.. I can't say I will be IC ... all the time. In fact, I will be IC, when I RP. But I won't be, when I'm not.

There's RP. But then there's my MMO social life.

My MMO social life and my RP are two different beasts, and both need attention.

I don't just play a MMO for the RP. I could log on and play all night and log off without RP'ing if I get no opportunity to (call me an opportunist). That leads to me sticking my neck into OOC stuff like what you would expect. Raids, PvP, LS stuff, PvP, events, PvP... PvP.


How much are you all going to be invested into such OOC stuff? I'd like to know, mainly because I'd like to see who else is going to dive into that stuff with me. 'Cause, y'know.. it would suck if I was only one..

(03-01-2013, 03:36 AM)Ryanti Wrote: [ -> ]Next question!


Beyond RP, which I will be doing, obviously, I'm considered a man of many colors when it comes to MMO's. I RP. I PVP. I OOC.

What I mean by that is, I alternate. Usually, when I log into a MMO, I'm with friends whom I either talk to in guild chat (in this case, LS.. ) or do things with (quests, raid, crafting, pvp, etc.). Sometimes I go on general chat and just live it up, sometimes I meet new people, sometimes I *dot dot dot* whatever.

I noticed a lot of members here are heavy, heavy roleplayers. Some wouldn't even be OOC at all, ever. While I have to say that while I RP, I RP really heavily, which means I get really into it.. I can't say I will be IC ... all the time. In fact, I will be IC, when I RP. But I won't be, when I'm not.

There's RP. But then there's my MMO social life.

My MMO social life and my RP are two different beasts, and both need attention.

I don't just play a MMO for the RP. I could log on and play all night and log off without RP'ing if I get no opportunity to (call me an opportunist). That leads to me sticking my neck into OOC stuff like what you would expect. Raids, PvP, LS stuff, PvP, events, PvP... PvP.


How much are you all going to be invested into such OOC stuff? I'd like to know, mainly because I'd like to see who else is going to dive into that stuff with me. 'Cause, y'know.. it would suck if I was only one..

I understand the need to actually PLAY the game in addition to RPing. As you said, there is also an MMO social life. In order to address this, OOC social shells like Backstage are created to promote communication between the wide variety of RPers. Backstage has been used to create leveling and Primal hunting parties. Towards the End of an Era, it saw much use when creating parties to finish all the story quests.

As for me, I do value playing the game almost as much as I do RPing, and odds are, I will be joining you, shouting LFG FOR GARUDA FIGHT in Ul'dah's market streets and spamming the OOC social shells for people to join, haha!

Oh, there's plenty of us who lead both "lifestyles" in-game, so to speak. I know with me, I plan on both running my heavy RP linkshell and remaining a member of my endgame linkshell/free company from 1.0.

Some of us are more into endgame and other game related content than others, of course. I know with me it's more of a 60/40 split (Maybe, just maybe a 50/50 split) leaning more towards endgame than roleplaying. I take great strides to keep the two separate, however. I usually just did endgame with close friends, some of which also roleplayed. Most didn't.

They are simply two experiences I preferred to keep separate. When I was with my endgame linkshell, RP wasn't something that ever came up. When it came to hanging on mumble with the linkshell, it was just a bunch of us friends playing the game itself, like anyone else.

Of course, if you're the kind of person who would prefer to have both roleplay and endgame mixed, there's probably going to be shells that exist for that purpose as well.

But I get where you're coming from. Just because I'm not 100% in-character all the time doesn't mean I take my roleplay any less seriously. When I am in character, I get in-character. I roleplay "heavily" and aim for serious character development and experiences. You can still be a heavy roleplayer and not roleplay all the time. To me, heavy implies the amount of commitment you have to being in-character when you actually are in-character, not the amount of overall time you spend in-character.

Other people will see it differently, of course.

For me, Isaac will grow separately in RP than in game. Say I have four classes maxed out, those skills won't reflect on the skills he has in RP. Sure, he may learn new things, maybe a more powerful magic or what have you, but because I'm a lvl 50 black mage in the game, doesn't mean that Isaac will have those abilities in an RP setting.

Wonderful responses so far. I'm enjoying everyone's input. It's also relieving to see that I won't be alone either.

I consider myself a huge PvP'er, (RP-PvP minority yay!) and that's one of the major things I'm looking forward to in ARR, besides the labyrinth (Endgame dungeons, what have you). Although I will be starting back at level 1, I'm looking forward to doing everything with you guys, not just RP.

Because we're a community, right?

Also, a question that I'm adding onto this current question, I heard there was some kind of.. gambling/casino area being planned? Where one could play slots and card games and stuff? I heard there was going to be something similar to poker?

I'm definitely going to be playing cards a lot if that's the case as well.

I'm one of those heavy RP/Endgame people and I'm really interested in PvP as well!

As for the Golden Saucer, not much has been leaked but it might see release in the expansion.