(09-28-2014, 12:24 PM)Aldotsk Wrote: I actually befriended the person.

Titor Wrote:Just going to leave this here

Quote:3.5 Naming Right. You may not use any name or other intellectual property belonging to Square Enix or any other third party in your use of the Game (for example, naming a character after a celebrity, company, product, or superhero).

You try to change Super Mario's name in Balmung, I'll kill you >:/

(09-28-2014, 12:54 PM)Kylin Wrote: This is a slippery slope in my opinion. It depends on how far you take it. It's perfectly fine to draw inspiration from external characters and I'd say it's even okay to (partially) utilize names that you like. And if one is just simply using a particular trope, that's probably fine too. However, if you're outright using the full character and transferring it to another world, that's where the problem will be. Personal opinions aside, it comes down to one thing in that regard:

Copyright infringement.

Video games/tv shows/books/etc all have copyrights for a reason. Their characters belong to the original creators, and nobody else. And it's completely understandable. While I may not legally have copyright powers over my character (SE technically does), I'd be downright furious if I saw another "Kylin Felstar" that looked and had an almost identical history to my character. To me, that's stealing my work and passing it off as your own. And that's not okay with me. Likewise, it's not okay with other character creators out there. It's the very reason SE outright disallows names like "Cloud Strife." I challenge someone to find a character in XIV named that, exactly spelled like that. You won't. You'll find "Cloud' Strife" (lots of 'em) with an added apostrophe. But that's the closest you'll get. There's a reason for that. SE doesn't allow it. It's their character and their intellectual property.

Likewise, other character creators (such as anime characters) don't like their intellectual property being used without their permission. That being said, I very highly doubt any of these character creators are going to come after someone for using the character concept in an MMO RP community. But it doesn't make it any more 'right.'

Drawing inspiration from a character you like (whether a particular name or a specific character trait) is one thing. Everyone does that to some extent, even famous authors. Outright using the exact character of someone else is another entirely, and, in my opinion, should be avoided at all costs.

So to answer the question: For me personally, no. I wouldn't take such a character seriously at all. If I see someone RPing a Naruto Uzumaki, I'm rolling my eyes and walking the opposite direction. That's just me though.

I'd challenge you to isolate the particular traits of the character you like and use those as inspiration, rather than just outright using the character itself. Then let the character develop its own identity that's of your own making.

(09-28-2014, 01:40 PM)Kage Wrote: Clearly, what you do is make Hydaelyn UAW #XXX (Unadministrated world) and have Fate working with the TSAB on the planet somehow. *puts on yuri goggles* Fate is after a Jewel Seed (perhaps those pretty soul stones) but comes into trouble when facing the Beast Tribes and Garleans. Thus her partner in raising Vivio comes down with a Starlight Breaker trying to get them to listen to her while the Warriors of Light then come to help and eventually join the TSAB.

I can see this happening with a group of RPers dedicated to it but not with people who are RPing generally. It's like if Fate met with random UAW citizen. What? How would they react? Probably think crazy. I mean... space.

(09-28-2014, 03:23 PM)Yaaris Wrote: Actually, I'll bet if you used the magical girl thing on your original character, some people would find it endearing.

(09-28-2014, 12:03 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: Naturally, you can, of course, RP whatever you want.

That said, from my experience in MMO RP, most MMO RPers come from the tabletop and LARP worlds (or even the MU* world, where fanfic-like games were often less common than original universes or those derived from tabletop RPGs), where playing a canonical character is typically viewed extremely negatively. Even tabletop RPG players who play in licensed universes (Star Wars, Firefly/Serenity, Amber, etc.) generally don't play canonical characters, as part of the fun is creating your own character and placing them in that setting. Canonical characters are established as NPCs.

So, you can imagine that there's a significant clash between the fanfic RPers, who typically play canonical characters to avoid Mary Sues, authorial wish fulfillment, etc. and the tabletop/LARP RPers who find playing canonical characters to be abhorrent. My supposition is that those RPers who classify themselves as "heavier" RPers typically come out of the tabletop/LARP tradition, and that there are more players from that tradition in MMOs generally. Even if you reject those suppositions, though, while playing an original character in an MMO may grate on those from the fanfic community who are playing in an MMO, playing a canonical character in one will result in rejection from a significant proportion of the MMO RP community. Basically, it's a different culture and tradition of RP, with different norms.

In short: while you can do whatever you want, playing canonical characters (regardless of whether they jumped here via cross-universe portal or not) is likely to result in significant problems in your RP, so my advice is to not do it.