Hydaelyn Role-Players

So, I've been staring at this forum for the last several hours, debating if I should make this post or not. Ultimately, and obviously, I decided "what the hell, why not?"...so here I am.

After a long hiatus away from RPing on my main (who am I kidding? I never really got started RPing on her), I've decided on a different course of action. Upon hearing of the imminent name-change feature, I decided to Fantasia my highlander into an elezen. I figured I could roll a new RP character without losing the many, many, many things I have gained on her since starting her so long ago. Things are always nice, right? I RPed for a few months on a miqo'te, but I didn't have the patience to hop back and forth between characters and generally lost the drive to play a miqo'te. It was a bit out of my range.

Anyway, my question is twofold. 

First, I'm torn on whether I should wait until I get my character's name changed before I start looking for RP opportunities. Do any of you have opinions on that?

Second, I'm looking for Ishgardian folks and others who would interact with them. I'm currently fleshing the character out more, but I'm forming my ideas around my character leaving Ishgard seeking....something. A thought I had was something similar to the Sharlayans but not quite so fantastic and badass as them. Someone with an interest in the occult, the beasties, the magic, and the general state of the world outside Ishgard's icy gates...and the curiosity to actually leave home to see those things.

Obligatory Tonberry: 

Quote:First, I'm torn on whether I should wait until I get my character's name changed before I start looking for RP opportunities. Do any of you have opinions on that?

I would be wary of starting RP on a character with a name you know they won't have. Majority of the time it's going to get looked over or forgotten, and I can think of multiple people at the Grindstone fighting under an alias that gets mentioned when they introduce themselves and no one calls them that for the rest of the night. It's more trouble than it's worth, plus it always throws me off personally when the name over someone's head doesn't match the user.

Not to say you can't do it, just saying it might be bumpier than you anticipate.

That's actually why I'm having the hangup.

I do plan to make things easier on the people I know, if it makes a difference. Most everyone knows me as "Kat", since my character is Katja. I intend to rename to Katriane to keep that moniker.