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[Discussion] Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Printable Version

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RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - S'imba - 10-18-2016

That 500 foot vertical yo.

In all seriousness it doesn't matter how it's handled in the end. Some people are gonna be pissed, some people are going to avoid rping with people, some people are gonna be unhappy someone went and retconned their character, and some will continue on like nothing changed. 

Really in the end the most important thing comes down to is that you've got good story and that you're having fun, not getting caught up on little details about whether a character can or can't be something.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Oliver - 10-18-2016

I had always figured that a normal dragoon was just like ... an arm of the Ishgardian military, but only really the WoL and Estinien (being Azure Dragoons) were special. I mean hell a PC even trains a new dragoon in the 50-60 quest line so...

But I guess it also makes sense since if Dragoons are able to tap into their inner dragon (definitely an Ishgardian thing, what with the blood of dragons and all), maybe only the special few could be chosen to make sure they could control themselves and not succumb. Unless I'm misremembering, it's been over a year since I did those quests and how that whole blood thing was presented. It's either all Ishgardians have it within them, or it's a pure consumption thing like the heretics.

I forget exactly.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - AlionLucada - 10-18-2016

I imagine it's because RPers are a small niche and they want to make the larger playerbase feel special by saying these classes/jobs are rare or forbidden or one of a kind. Which is fine.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Maril - 10-18-2016

/modhat on

Additional cleaning have been carried out on the thread. 
Please do note that the [Discussion] tag is in effect on this thread. 
Keep discussion on-topic, please. 

/modhat off

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Valence - 10-19-2016

(10-18-2016, 12:46 PM)McBeef Wrote:
(10-18-2016, 12:37 PM)V Wrote:
(10-18-2016, 12:35 PM)AlionLucada Wrote: That being said, don't be surprised or upset if you encounter people who follow the lore 

Or at least allege to.
Lol I agree, no one follows the lore. 

Every RP character is a form of lore breaking. Or show me in the lorebook where it has your character in there.

Respectfully, that sounds a bit disingenuous..

People are not arguing that their characters are part of the lore, they are saying that they don't clash with the lore, or don't break it. Or even bend it.

I for once, think that given the correct, convoluted explanations, most jobs are playable ICly. Again, it just is a matter of how far you are willing to push suspension of disbelief. It's not black and white.

(10-18-2016, 02:01 PM)McBeef Wrote: The only reason people ever have for saying things like "You can't be a Dragoon" is because Dragoons are cool and they fight dragons and they're in the trailer for Heavensward and Estinien is hot and everyone wants to be a dragoon. 

Other people are Dragoons and they have a lot of fun being dragoons but somehow that is NOT OK, because it makes your adventurer feel less cool. "It's not that my character isn't strong/cool/interesting enough it's that they're SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES."

And now everyone is like AH HA. I knew it! There aren't that many dragoons!!!! You're not allowed to play what you want! You have to RP like I do! Everything has to be Generic! SEE THE LORE BOOK SAYS RIGHT THERE, ALL YOU DRAGOONS HAVE BEEN DOING IT WRONG. 

These are the same people who will say the same things once Stormblood comes out and it turns out there are only like 5 monks or something.

That's bordering on ascribing nefarious motives to people. I don't think that kind of bullshit brings anything to the discussion at all.

(10-18-2016, 12:50 PM)Abelia Kir Armiger Wrote:
(10-18-2016, 12:47 PM)PrinceKlari Wrote: I honestly don't see the issue here. Dragoons can salute and acknowledge other Dragoons. It's doubtful that you would EVER be in RP with ALL 30 or so IC Dragoons at the same time. So why why get all bent out of shape. People RP as Paladins (very few), Scholars (lost art), SMNs (lost art), WHMs (lost art), etc. All the time.


If anything this should IMO INCREASE people doing open RP or walk-ups to the IC Dragoons because they would be basically famous to Ishgardians. To even RP and make your own story is lore breaking in-and-of itsself because we are all WOL, technically. 

If you enjoy RP as a DRG, continue to RP as a DRG. Just know the rules have changed abit, but this is supposed to be FUN.


And being the lore police over something like this imo is silly. Unlike say, being a Samurai or Red Mage when the jobs or lore hasn't been even introduced in the canon yet.

I thought WHM was a forbidden art, not lost?...if so there is a difference there. Either way, I have noted many dragoons calling themselves knight dragoons or retired dragoons. I saw someone call themselves a dragoon reservist, meant to go active should war start once more.

Both more or less. Forbidden by the Elementals and most of Eorzea, like black magic is by everyone.

I mean, it doesn't mean that your character can't 'stumble' on an amdapori soulstone somewhere. Sounds silly? Possibly. Goes against the lore? Not really, as far as I know.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Valence - 10-19-2016

(10-18-2016, 01:50 PM)S Wrote: This right here, when you create a character you're writing your own lore into the game world. Characters that are written to follow the lore to the absolute t tend to be uninteresting Imo. It's the other side of the coin of people who think they need to be a super special character to be interesting. 

I want to meet characters who interact with the world. Nor just sit around the quicksand and chat about how they spend their day reading at the ossuray day in and day out telling me about some little lore tidbit that they read about. 

At some point a character is going to have to go out on a limb and fill in their own lore at some point. Because it's entirely unreasonable to expect SE to have written every single detail into the world. I can only imagine how soul crushing it must feel to go to these lore panels knowing you're going to be bombarded by questions that probably never crossed their minds. Knowing they'll need a lot of improvising when they get asked a question like, how do these jellyfish fly? I honestly can't imagine that's something they thought about when it was designed.

I'm a bit sad that you think people playing mundane characters are uninteresting. If you need to play an elite edgy dragoon to go out interact with the world, because hell no, a standard gridanian gardening botanist sure can't as hell interact with the world... And especially not his piece of Black Shroud... Which sure isn't part of the WORLD. Rolleyes

Everyone will find their interest in different degrees of grandeur.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - S'imba - 10-19-2016

It's not that they need to be a super big awesome character as it is people worrying so much that their character not come off as anything special that they don't ever get out into the world. 

There's nothing wrong about being average but to take it to the point that it's exactly the same issue that people that feel their character needs to be a special job to be interesting. 

I'm not looking so much for special characters as much as people who are bold with their characters. By bold I don't mean being special, as much as it is people breaking out of the box to be something more than just a face in the crowd. 

It's like meeting for an interview, the characters that are going to be remembered are going to be the ones that stand out from the rest. 

If someone is going to is gonna write a generic thief character and not be anything more out of fear of being seen as special, then no, it's not going to be an interesting character.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Virella - 10-19-2016

(10-19-2016, 04:29 AM)S Wrote: It's not that they need to be a super big awesome character as it is people worrying so much that their character not come off as anything special that they don't ever get out into the world. 

There's nothing wrong about being average but to take it to the point that it's exactly the same issue that people that feel their character needs to be a special job to be interesting. 

I'm not looking so much for special characters as much as people who are bold with their characters. By bold I don't mean being special, as much as it is people breaking out of the box to be something more than just a face in the crowd. 

It's like meeting for an interview, the characters that are going to be remembered are going to be the ones that stand out from the rest. 

If someone is going to is gonna write a generic thief character and not be anything more out of fear of being seen as special, then no, it's not going to be an interesting character.
Not like you know, have something called personality to make them interesting, and not really what they are or how they look like.

I think a generic thief would be still a lot less generic then your 'insert any very common character concept in here' on Balmung.

If people can't write a character, fitting in lore, to make them interesting, they are simply not skillful roleplayers/writers to begin with. It is not a good idea to try to cling onto a special job/background to make your character interesting if you can't give them an interesting personality, or provided interesting roleplay, to begin with. I think that is truly the 'issue' with a lot of people who roleplay such things.

They can't make character's personalities or roleplay interesting within the lore given, and instead resort to outlandish concepts to make them look interesting for other people. They look for attention of others more then writing something good. Because you know, being cool/outlandish/special is going to generate attention to you and your character, good or bad, it seems to matter little to them, as long they get said desired attention.

But once more, if you can't write a character with a interesting personality and/or roleplay. The fault doesn't lay with the 'restrictions' given by lore, but instead the blame should be put on a lack of creativity. And often with roleplayers, sadly enough, the inability to be social, and simply cling on trying to look interesting, instead of creating said interesting interaction.

Then again at the end of the day, it's not like people of either side of the fence are going to roleplay together. So who cares.

That's my two gil on it.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Domri Blackblade - 10-19-2016

(10-19-2016, 04:29 AM)Simba Wrote: It's not that they need to be a super big awesome character as it is people worrying so much that their character not come off as anything special that they don't ever get out into the world. 

There's nothing wrong about being average but to take it to the point that it's exactly the same issue that people that feel their character needs to be a special job to be interesting. 

I'm not looking so much for special characters as much as people who are bold with their characters. By bold I don't mean being special, as much as it is people breaking out of the box to be something more than just a face in the crowd. 

It's like meeting for an interview, the characters that are going to be remembered are going to be the ones that stand out from the rest. 

If someone is going to is gonna write a generic thief character and not be anything more out of fear of being seen as special, then no, it's not going to be an interesting character.

Characters that are well remembered are ones with a well written personality. Their feats, class, backstory, and anything else, to me, is secondary.

Flawed, innocent, egotistical, timid. Doesn't matter the kind of character, only that it stands out as an individual.

So yes, a generic thief could be interesting. I wrote a character who could not fight or heal and RPed him for nearly 8 years and he was extremely well received by the communities I RPed him.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Enla - 10-19-2016

(10-19-2016, 04:29 AM)Simba Wrote: It's not that they need to be a super big awesome character as it is people worrying so much that their character not come off as anything special that they don't ever get out into the world. 

There's nothing wrong about being average but to take it to the point that it's exactly the same issue that people that feel their character needs to be a special job to be interesting. 

I'm not looking so much for special characters as much as people who are bold with their characters. By bold I don't mean being special, as much as it is people breaking out of the box to be something more than just a face in the crowd. 

It's like meeting for an interview, the characters that are going to be remembered are going to be the ones that stand out from the rest. 

If someone is going to is gonna write a generic thief character and not be anything more out of fear of being seen as special, then no, it's not going to be an interesting character.
The devil is in the details. You can more than write a 'generic' character on paper who breaks through to the reader and leaves a lasting impression. Honestly for myself the characters who are of little import who then go on to do great deeds in spite of their limitations are the far more memorable. Samwise from Lord of The Rings springs to mind immediately. What was special about Sam that you could not attribute to any other member of the company? What was special about Sam that even his fellow Hobbit's did not possess? He was the least remarkable of the four on paper and in ambition. Yet it is through that that he became perhaps the greatest hero of the narrative. For while Frodo broke under the weight of his burden it was Samwise who bore him further into Mordor and eventually saw the ring destroyed. His desires simple. His skills utterly unprepared to the task without a garden to tend. Yet he is the reason the day was won.

Honestly if someone can't make a so called 'generic' character interesting enough to rise above their mediocre abilities to leave a lasting impression I find more fault with the writer than anyone else. The only difference between Sam, or any of the Hobbits really, and any other character who is exactly like him is that Tolkien had the deft hand needed to write him and make his personality take the forefront. Nothing more.

With that said I don't really care about 'special this' and 'special that', write what you want to write. You'll always find people who will receive it for better or worse. Having fun is more important. ^^

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Teadrinker - 10-19-2016

[Mod PlagueMask]

This is a final warning for this thread as it's had about four as of this time as well as several inflammatory posts bearing no relevance to the topic removed from it. Posts echoing or quoting said posts have also been cleaned.

[/Mod PlagueMask]

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Valence - 10-19-2016

(10-19-2016, 04:29 AM)S Wrote: It's not that they need to be a super big awesome character as it is people worrying so much that their character not come off as anything special that they don't ever get out into the world. 

There's nothing wrong about being average but to take it to the point that it's exactly the same issue that people that feel their character needs to be a special job to be interesting. 

I'm not looking so much for special characters as much as people who are bold with their characters. By bold I don't mean being special, as much as it is people breaking out of the box to be something more than just a face in the crowd. 

It's like meeting for an interview, the characters that are going to be remembered are going to be the ones that stand out from the rest. 

If someone is going to is gonna write a generic thief character and not be anything more out of fear of being seen as special, then no, it's not going to be an interesting character.

You put your finger exactly where I agree... to disagree.

I think that's an annoying mistake to believe that making a character stand out is done by making them "go out of the box", making them "special".

What makes a character stand out is a well rounded, fleshed out character, 3 dimensional character, not a character that is so special that they lose their very essence by being... I don't know exactly what they are actually in those cases, that's the issue.

A character can be as special, out of the box, as you may want them to be, if your character is flat as a pancake and 2 dimensional, then it makes it even worse than a mundane 2 dimensional character. Because it turns them into something rubbish, unbelievable, and/or just laughable (in a bad way).

But I guess that's also where you will find a whole world of difference between what makes shonen characters like Naruto "cool", and seinen characters "interesting". In the latter case, what makes your average thief interesting, is exactly because your average thief is average in the first place: all the struggles they will face, their doubts, their failures, the way they see the world, their human side. In the former case, what will make your average thief interesting is just that they will comply to be basic rules of shonen, being a teen-angst, dark brooding but all lovey goody two shoes male hero who gets angry at every injustice, and can actually change things because he is special, a chosen one, and has super powers. And compared to him indeed, your average thief, no matter how well fleshed out they will be, will pale in comparison, not because of a lesser writing, but to the contrary, because the special snowflake shonen character will suck out everything from that average character presence to concentrate it in the middle of the spotlight: the awesome one.

Now you see why most people playing average characters tend to flee the former archetype like the plague. Those are the best way to turn your average character, no matter how good they are, into simple story disposable meat for the other one to shine (out of their rubbishness).

Note: that's my personal, artistical taste on the matter, for once.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Hyrist - 10-19-2016

Questions about the validity of those who attempt at lore adherence aside - I wanted to ask a bit of feedback from across the isle about peoples opinions on how this, and other restrictive lore documentation feels on the opinions of people.

It's fairly clear that, baring the massive gray area that is elite adventurers and adventure culture in general, that the lore was written without any consideration to gameplay or role-play features. This is evidence by the multiple job organization lores that completely contrast one another, from the fairly open free Paladins to the dwindling Knights Dragoon to even the non-existent White Mages.

From complete acceptance to lore bending, this has left a pretty divisive mark on our Roleplaying community, as indicated by the sharp discussions and mod invoking. Where do you stand, opinion wise, on this kind of lore? Do you consider it good writing or bad storyplay design?


As for my opinion:

"You can play or work with this, you can't with that.", In my opinion, does not sit well in a multiplayer field. The game is written very much from a single player RPG prespective, taking great strides to make the individual "Warrior of Light" feel special and central to the story to the point of exclusion of all else... with one exception.

That grey area mentioned earlier - the Adventurer Culture. I find it funny that, in a book made of lore, the most central developmental culture of an entire continent is left with so little information and time worked upon.  I can't help that this order is left intentionally vague to be the ripe soil from which players can grow their own stories. But let's touch on that matter another time.

Without this exception, the game to me just isn't well written enough to accommodate the large number of RPers we have - at least not as a whole. Which means no matter how close you want to get to the lore itself, it's just completely unsustainable at this juncture as we're too numerous, and the game's writing anticipates far fewer of us in the long haul. (This is kinda indicated by the housing market to, I suppose.) 

Anyways, those are my scattered thoughts on it. How does everyone else feel - as this changed to Dragoon is just another indication of implied exclusivity among the many parts of the game's lore. I'll reply to other segments of this discussion likely on a different thread, as talking about using existing mechanics in game and implying whether they do or do not lend to characters with depth is sort of tangential here.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Aaron - 10-19-2016

Quote:But I guess that's also where you will find a whole world of difference between what makes shonen characters like Naruto "cool", and seinen characters "interesting". In the latter case, what makes your average thief interesting, is exactly because your average thief is average in the first place: all the struggles they will face, their doubts, their failures, the way they see the world, their human side. In the former case, what will make your average thief interesting is just that they will comply to be basic rules of shonen, being a teen-angst, dark brooding but all lovey goody two shoes male hero who gets angry at every injustice, and can actually change things because he is special, a chosen one, and has super powers. And compared to him indeed, your average thief, no matter how well fleshed out they will be, will pale in comparison, not because of a lesser writing, but to the contrary, because the special snowflake shonen character will suck out everything from that average character presence to concentrate it in the middle of the spotlight: the awesome one.
Ummm... no I'm going to have to disagree with this. There's a distinct difference between a interesting shonen hero and one that can be cool just because they suck out everything from the average person in comparison. The average thief is not inherently "better" than a superpowered MC of some high action movie or whatever. It all depends on the writing. DBZ is a prime example with this, The Saiyans mainly are terrible characters that drain any excitement from the human characters just because of plot line ancestry. It's to the point I believe DB Super to be absolutely trash.

But let's take Vegeta for example, as he's the only character from that series (besides teen gohan probably) that isn't cringe worthy to watch.  Now people don't like him because of his 1 liners, badass entrances (even though he never wins a big fight) or the fact he can shoot beams that can destroy worlds from his hands. He's got such a huge fanbase of people because he portrays the epitome of "You can do it if you work hard enough for it". GOKU is the typical all talented shonen hero with that basic ass "I hate all evil and never give up" crap. Vegeta is the one who you could see grow over the series and face many problems average people would (comparing themselves to someone doing better than them, not living up to others standards, having to compete with people who naturally just seem to be better than you) just on a larger scale.

Just cause you want to shoot magic from your hands doesn't automatically make you less interesting than one of those mundane characters nor is the reverse true. It's a preference to a demographic, but at the same time you don't have to be blind to the other side either.

RE: Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead - Valence - 10-19-2016

Yes of course. It would be boring if all stories were about a farmer boy going on an adventure.

Some powerful characters either work as you say because they started from scratch (but that's where it becomes tricky in MMOs, everyone isn't necessarily your audience and watches from the beginning, especially when realistic problems enter the equation, like a 20y old character master their art or so). Or either when they are powerful de facto, but are not the center of the spotlight (aka, mentors of sorts, see Gandalf, Auron, etc).

But more than that, it mostly boils down to believability, or suspension of disbelief.