Hydaelyn Role-Players

Looking for peoples viewpoints (and also lore) on Eorzea and how dangerous it is to live in.
Like, what would you say is normal occurrences, do we have some areas with particularity high crime rates, is there somewhere that is regarded as being safer than everywhere else - and how much conflict would you say is normal? I'm thinking between people, factions, companies, etc. 

Personally I tend to regard Eorzea to be a place where you have to keep your wits about you if you want to live into old age (as also mentioned on the lore dev-panel) and I do not tend to regard violent conflict between characters to be out of the ordinary, unless say, someone continuously gets attacked like every day for a month. 

Recently I have seen other takes on it though, so I am curious now as to what people think

Personally, I think that for non-adventurers or martial-minded people (anyone remotely like DoM or DoW), it is -very- dangerous.

Not just to Lalafell but Hyur, Roegadyn, etc. Many monsters are -huge- not just in comparison to Lalas. Fern made a point to say that most were young because outside of the cities it's pretty much a hazard.

I'd also say that person on person crime is big but really not as big as the fact that monsters will kill and eat anyone,.

Considering if you start at Ul'Dah and go into Central Thanalan right of the bat to see there's ants bigger than you that are hostile. 

I'd say Eorzea is pretty dangerous. 

Ain't even talking bout the BIGASS Morbols in Gridania.

Well to answer your question with another question: How do you actually die?

I mean sure it might be dangerous but Raise is a fairly common spell now, so sure you might die but a nice conjuer might come along and help you, so what are the long lasting implications of the raise spell?
Is it barrowing time from the end of your life? Is each raise 5 minutes off the tail end of your life?
Or is death now like suffering a concussion? Have one to many and it just stops working, and thats it? 

I mean i am super new to RPing in FFXIV but surely we don't all pretend that Raise, Cure and Psych arent things, on top of that there are always potions.

But to really answer your question I would imagine that its dangerous outside the walls but most people inside are somewhat all right, a few thieves and beggers a dead body now and again but not eveyone is going to shank you in the back.

But thats just like.. one cats crazy rantings man.. *passes the catnip to the next poster.*

IIRC raise doesn't actually /raise/ dead people but people who are borderline dead.

(12-21-2014, 07:42 AM)Aaron Wrote: [ -> ]IIRC raise doesn't actually /raise/ dead people but people who are borderline dead.

Oh... well don't I look dumb now..

YMMV, but as far as Raise goes I've always considered it one of the more powerful healing spells, and as such it's not really something that healers are able to throw out like candy (and I think the long cast time and to a certain extent the conjurer story support me up on this). Of course, with more experience it's probably easier, but even then in a large battle there's a good chance that you'd run into situations where it's raise one or two people or heal everyone else. Though I do like Aaron's idea that there's only a certain window where you can use it; it seems to fit with what we know about death and aether.

Now, as to how safe Eorzea is… Well, I’ve always thought that the cities seem to be fairly safe, albeit with a few caveats that basically boil down to “keep your head down and mind your own business in Limsa and Ul’dah” and “don’t piss off the elementals in Gridania”. The areas surrounding the cities seem to be alright as well, if the settlements and guard patrols are anything to go by. Sure, there might be the occasional monster attack (going off the marauder storyline), but it doesn’t seem like an everyday thing. There’s probably also going to be some regional differences as well; overall, La Noscea and the Shroud have more of a “settled” feel to me, what with all of the villages in the Shroud and the farms in La Noscea.

Once you get farther away from the large settlements though, all bets are off. Beast tribes, bandits, giant monsters… You might be okay if you stuck to more traveled roads, but it still seems like a very good idea to either know how to defend yourself or hire someone who can. Or better yet, both.

From what we learned in the MSQ about souls and aether, I'd say Raise/Resurrection have a very limited time window that they can be used after someone has truly died. Usually though, I play it as an ability that recovers someone from unconsciousness instead of death. When an RP wants their character to die, they tend to stay dead.

I agree with everyone else. Virtually every bit of lore that isn't purely informational is there to show just how terrible life in Eorzea is.

In ARR, thousands were enslaved by the Garlean Empire under less than humanitarian conditions and until the PC came along there was nothing anyone could do about it.

In Ul'dah I would imagine that for the most part only heavily armed cheaters prosper, and if you get fired from your job or quit you will starve to death because no way are you getting another job and the government is not too keen on the idea of welfare. The Sultansworn and Syndicate constantly at each others throats threatening a brutal civil war haven't helped matters either.

Limsa Lominsa has a standard of living comparable to Bangladesh, the constant threat of the Shagain & Kobold beastmen, and a young government rife with corruption and internal politics. 

At times it's difficult to say whether being a "Bad Boss" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadBoss) is the exception or the rule in Gridania. Kan-E-Senna is shown to disagree strongly with this trope, but the PC almost always has to deal with various townsfolk and Wood Wailers that do fit the trope.

Things ain't looking too peachy in Ishgard anymore either since the start of the War against the Dragons, a brief threat of civil war and dictatorship on the horizon of possibilities.

And this isn't even counting the threat of the Primals and the Ascians.

To add to this, monsters aside, I think the terrain being reshaped by the Calamity could also provide some dangerous hazards. We can assume that adventurers won't die from falling off cliffs and whatnot, that would be anticlimactic, (thus the whole 1 hp thing) but I think it would only add to the hazards of being in places like the Twelveswood and Coerthas. There are pitfalls and steep drops everywhere in some sections of those areas. For an average civilian, unaccustomed to the lay of the land and traveling in general, traversing some parts of the map without assistance from a chocobo porter or merchant convoy could be nigh impossible.

Also assuming spells like raise are essentially always "saving you from near death," what if a person was trapped in an area not easily reached? Raise isn't a perfect solution to all situations; it's convenient for the sake of gameplay, but in actual setting terms, I can't imagine every person in the continent can be saved by a sparse number of talented adventurers or Grand Company mages.

To live outside the walls of a city and to a lesser part a fortress would be very deadly seeing the wild life itself is powerful.

It wasn't that long ago in actual human history that violence and abuse was truly rampant (unlike today where we merely believe it is).  The odds of facing a violent death was exceptionally high during the middle ages, for instance.  You would have known someone, probably a close family member who was violently killed.  These things happen today, of course, but during the middle ages, almost every family would have some direct experience.

For FFXIV, I think that anyone leaving the city or some other organized shelter would know they were taking their life into their hands - that there was a damn good chance they'd never come home.

This is all just my opinion tho.  For all I know, Eorzea is perfectly safe.  But considering how often something tries to kill my character, it doesn't feel safe at all. I do realize that's a game mechanic but still, Eorzea is almost certainly many, many times more dangerous than our world.

Yes, like the poster above me, I would cite the medieval era insofar that life would be quite dangerous, and that in the contemporary era, it's safer than it has ever been.

I thought it'd be fun to break down a region and examine it. Let's go with Thanalan, since it's the least complicated one!

Central Thanalan: We have Ul'Dah where life is spend or be spent, basically. Then there's outside in the wilderness, where we have giant ants, angry refugees, quiqirn, Cutter's cry where the Darklight folks died -- and treacherous Sil'Dih ruins! 

Western Thanalan: The contrast between safe and dangerous is high here. Closer to the city we have Scorpion's Crossing, the Hammers and the Silver Bazaar, which all seem RELATIVELY safe -- though apparently the Bazaar runs into trouble with enterprising businessmen. The Copperbell mines proved that even laboring life can get hairy. Vesper bay is a bit of a reprieve...then we go up to parata's peace, crawling with giants and choked with noxious gases. To top that off, Cape Westwind and Garlean forces are ready to defend their little space with deadly desperation.

Eastern Thanalan: Camp Drybone is perhaps the only safe haven, with the Golden Bazaar experiencing frequent Amalj'aa incursions and the ruins of the invisible city crawling with undead and lesser voidsent. Highbridge SEEMS safe, but the constant quiqirn invasions say otherwise! The Burning wall is just downright treacherous in itself. One wrong step...! After that, the road to the Shroud presents harsh wildlife and Corpse Brigade stragglers who will rob and leave a traveler dead on the dirt. 

Southern Thanalan: WE CAN'T STOP HERE. THIS IS LIZARD COUNTRY.

Northern Thanalan: Not even getting into the abundance of a highly volatile substance, the presence of Castrum Meridianum and the ruins of the Praetorium present enough danger, likely being chocked full of Garleans who have nowhere else to go. Cornered animals, and all. 


Can you imagine a breakdown of all the other zones? So much danger!

East Shroud is probably the most dangerous place in the three areas IMO