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Our FFXIV RP - Momo - 01-10-2016

When you talk about me in chat or on this thread, you are welcome to call me Momo, it says so directly above the little picture of me from Thordan's point of view, a point of view all of you perhaps now share. My name is not now, nor has it ever been OP, though I am indeed OP enough to merit it.


I noticed today, there are lots of active new members around the past few weeks, with lots of questions.  I also noticed those questions are not being answered as well, or with truthful answers as they should be.  There are two different things I will be communicating here: My opinion as well as the basic facts of our "Community".

Some of the Facts:

~Mostly we are not a community at all.  I noticed this before, when discussing it over a few conversations with different people.  There is a sense, an attitude which seems to pervade the minds of many prominent members of the community, that it is indeed -not- a community at all, but simply a coming together of some RPers towards somewhat common goals.  This doesn't sound negative at all, except in my distaste for the view, but in truth, it is quite negative.  

Many of the most prominent members of the community here, they don't want whats best for their fellow players.  You can see it in the fake throw away comments that they make, you can see it in the way they conduct themselves, you can see it in the way they speak about their characters, but take little to no interest in yours.  Sure, we all speak about our own characters, but you know when we do that, we are meant to be sharing the experience of creation, rather than boasting our characters over and over to others until we grow weary of them at all, and the only people that will RP with them, are either starstruck members who don't care or don't know better, and/or those with egos to match theirs who can stand in relative companionship with a head so big you can barely fit in the room.  I know this point will not go over well, I can hear it already, but I also know that somewhere in the back of the mind of the person who reads this, there is a certain feeling that it might be true, do the searching, you will probably find it to be as true as I did.

All of that said, there are people in this community who go out of their way, to, on a weekly basis, make the community feeling known to others.  They make events, they make themselves visible, but not in such a way as to boast themselves, rather in the sense that they can harbor the creative wills of all those who participate, and allow their group to prosper in inspiration and the connective force between the artist we have here.  When you interact with these people, you can feel their genuine creativity and interest in this community as a whole, you will walk away knowing that what they told you, how they helped was because they truly wanted to, and not because they wanted to advance themselves.

The main thing here is: Ask yourself what sort of help you want, and what the source of that help is.  Is the source of that help genuine or not, is it meant to truly help you and others, or is it a facade meant to increase a persons agenda of making themselves more popular, and then lastly ask yourself which of those you would want for you and your creative work.  If the answer is "anything that helps I will take", then good on you, I have nothing against that, but know what you are getting yourself into fully, before you enter into it is my top suggestion there.

~"Roleplaying is what I pay for, so technically I am fulfilling my duty in the game, because I am going what I want."

This is another touchy one, and one I have a hard time approaching without genuinely offending some people I actually like.  This also has something to do with the subject above, as it is often a point made and filled to the brim with the "mememe" of the "humble masses" of egoists we have on RPC.  But I will soldier on I guess.  Yes, okay yes, you are "getting your money's worth" by roleplaying and doing little else.  Yes, I "have no right" to tell you what to do with your gametime.  Heard it all before, but there are some more facts and opinions in there that you out-rightly ignore when you are of this mind, and this extends beyond the RP community itself.

I will go into this further at a later time, but for now, let me just say, at it's start, RPC was different than the one you see today.  I was there, I remember all of it, and sure there were members much like there are today, but none of them had power over anything, and they didn't make themselves as well known for fear of being shunned by those around who were committed to a united front or RPers, working hard to make the group that we had at the time, really agree and explore a new world together to suss out all there was to know about Eorzea.  Now, we don't have that as much, now we are all apparently at war with one another over who's rp is better ( I know I know, hypocritical much?), or who can boast the biggest most ridiculous character, and all the groups and individuals are entrenched and battened down for the "long and hard" of RP community, which if you are reading this far in, there definitely is these days (in my opinion).

Balmung, for all we intend it to be, for all we decided for ourselves to bring to it when the much more paltry number of us than we have now, decided to move to it, (I am gonna bold this to make a point obviously) is not ours.  When we voted on it to be the RP server, we did not do so in a knowledge that we were taking it over, and gamers be damned if they don't RP.  We are not some moral minority, we are now a wide-spread and well known part of Balmung, but as it ever was the case, we do not own it, and never will.  We were meant to share it, though we ventured into it without acknowledging the opinions of those we have no conference with, see: Regular Non-RPer Gamers.  But we had good intentions at the start of it.

Now with all that fresh in your mind, know this, when you refuse to play the game, the actual god honest game that FFXIV is, you are doing everyone a disservice.  I know I know, once more hearken back to my above comments, and feed me the lines I gave just as I gave them, but the truth is the truth and I didn't choose it, nor is my "opinion" on the subject, merely something random and made up without factual basis.  From the balking and the shouts and rants of Non-RPers on our server, it is the actual reality of it.  Non-RPers basically hate us, and having discussed this with various parties both here and in game, I have to agree with some of their sentiments (the real sentiments, not the crazy internet troll ones, because I have both eyes and a brain, and can tell the difference).

This idea that FFXIV is nothing but a mode of transportation for your character to come alive is selfish, and I will go farther to say it is simply wrong and not true.  FFXIV is an MMO, and for those of you who know nothing about games, MMO means massively-multiplayer online (game).  Now, RPG is in there too: MMORPG, but the "G" at the end there, it means Game, as in gaming, as in actually playing a game, and the parts before it imply togetherness.  So when you enter with this mindset, "I don't care what anyone does or says, I pay, so I can do what I want, and basically screw anyone else who wants to enjoy the game itself as well as RP or otherwise, because I paid and I should be able to do what I want!", you are genuinely going against the grain and fiber of the implied purpose of the game.  And in doing so, you are further allowing those who are dissenters against RPers, to in actuality be right about what they say: "RPers suck, they don't know or care about playing the actual game, they are mostly just taking up space an annoying us while we actually try to play."

Indeed you are, and you can say what you like about that, we have all heard it multiple times, and you can just basically copy and paste the given line above for it, -or- you can change your mind on it, not from these words, but rather from your own inner opinions and thoughts, and a wider look at the Balmung Community and not just the mirror as per usual.  Even if you aren't an avid gamer, you can play to your level, you can and will get negative comments, but it is the internet, we soldier on for our own enjoyment.  You can stop looking at the actual game part of the RPG we share as some sort of "work" to be done, it is meant to be engaging and fun rather than work, and grinding is at your own pace of course.  You can choose to help your FC or LS members with things, grow your Rank together, use the buffs given, make friends with those who are not RPers (because frankly we are lucky on Balmung, and there are some amazing Non-RPers here), and just generally put yourself out there to do something that isn't for personal gain, and have real fun and be of more literal use than someone we can call upon to provide a "good character".

The above is opinion (almost all of it, with facts mixed in mind you, but I know this will get flamed the hardest probably, along with the rest of it), but I think the opinion is a valid one, not just a "well you can say what you want" one it will probably be made out to be.  And I encourage a change of mind, to see more great RPers become good gamers as well, and to make us deserve the best server around, rather than just deciding to populate it, and generally making other peoples' experiences at times awful.  If you keep to your "Non-Player" views, I think that is also fine, but I also think you should keep that more to yourself, so that those who want to play the game and RP can have the bigger voice, and allow the community to be one in all the ways it can be. 

~For all intents and purposes, FFXIVRP RPC has changed. (period)

Every member here will tell you that if they have been here long enough, some with nervous laughter at being shunned, some with disappointment at having seen what it started as, and some with an "Of course it has, this isn't 1.0".  I agree with all of them, but mostly the middle one is the one I fall in with.  The community has grown, we aren't "just surviving anymore" that changes goals on a larger scale, but do I think that should have changed the minds and goals on the individual, nope.  Allowing those who don't care for anything but themselves, and how popular, or how "helpful" or how "humble" they can be/seem, does not in any way do a service to the community which is facilitated here.  Do I want to leave because of this?  No, I distance myself, interact when I can, as many I know do, I still represent RPC when I can, but not because RPC is all it is meant to be, but rather there is little choice else should I want more people to connect with each other in the community.

Can this be fixed?  I dunno, not sure at all about that one, there will always be the forum trolls, the big-headed folk with their blind lackeys, been doing this sort of thing a long time, and never seen anything different.  The world at large supports a more sociopathic sort than it ever has before, both with "educated" and "normal" folk, so it becomes a really hard balance of who to trust with certain things.  Would the change come on a large scale?  No I don't think so, and there would be little point in trying because of the kind of upheaval it would take, and the number of people it would leave behind, it is not worth that. BUT, I do think that the slow and steady rising voices of those who want our community to change, and be a better and more unified community, could help this, and take it to a balanced level, where not everything is one way or the other, and supports good and creative folks who want to RP, but don't want to wade through the nonsense presented to them at their entrance into the community.  This idea is naturally devoid of my own opinions on the subject of what "good" or "creative" RP are, and there is a reason for that, because those are highly opinionated, and highly varying words in their individual meanings.  But as a whole, the idea I have placed before you is not hinged on what these words mean to you, but rather on the subjects I have more directly addressed.

To end this, those of you who know me, what sort I am, who are friendly with me, who have RPed with me, who know Momo at all (many do not, I don't RP with a huge number of people, because I like more intimate relationships in RP (coughcough, not -that- kind of intimate)), you probably know I have opinions.  You probably know as well, that I am not a totally unreasonable individual, and that I do think about things before I say them, I doubt I could have written on this subject at length without discussing it and observing it for some time now, and without some passion in my truths and opinions.  I, am ever, of the mind that one should RP what they want, but I am also of the mind that I will also not share your opinion or your RP should they go directly against what I find to be within the limits of reason for "good" "lore-compliant" or "creative" RP.  All of this being said, I will read and accept any replies and opinions, though I am not certain I will reply, I could probably go on, but I think I have said quite enough for now, I am still quite ready to RP with many of the members here, I hope to see many of you at events, and I hope to help some members in their creative endeavors whether that pushes Momo along or not, above all, I hope that we can and will change for the better when available to us, and that being said, I hope the RP Community, one that I am a part of and believe in, but am sometimes disappointed in, will continue to thrive and be greater than it was the day before.

Thanks for reading!

~Momo

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Aaron - 01-10-2016

. . . . . o_O wow that's deep.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Leggerless - 01-10-2016

Show Content

Ok, that's deep.

If I also want to throw in a simple, yet fancy theory on the community at large, it'd be this: We traded genuine, social interactions for efficiency.

Exposition edit!

Examples:
FFXI community compared to FFXIV community
PS1 community compared to PS2 community
Communities from years ago compared to communities today.

It seems the amount of time people have to play the game--RP, PvP, PvE, w/e--is dwindling. Rather than waste time by taking risks, they take the path of least resistance that yields the highest benefit at the lowest cost. That cost includes taking the time to form connections and be social; something you have to spend energy on and dedicate time to.

There are scientific disciplines (e.g. industrial engineering) dedicated to optimization in systems of all kinds. It is both a blessing and a curse; one seen in theorycrafting and communities alike.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Virella - 01-10-2016

Honestly? I think you're way over thinking and dramatising this.

Sit back, relax and just ignore the things you do not like. In truth, with the exception of NoModsLand, which you really shouldn't take serious at all, I think the RPC, or roleplayers in general, aren't as bad as you try to make them out to be.

In truth? I think with these type of topics you're sort of being the very person you dislike according to your wall of text but... /shrug. That is my 2 gil on the matter.

I could go type a whole wall of text about where and how you're wrong in my eyes, but it is an opinion, so I'm not going to bother with it. As you know. It is an opinion. Not facts you're giving.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Ciel - 01-10-2016

I wasn't going to chip in, but I put this simple statement out in the open on another site the other day:  You are responsible for your own fun.

No one else is responsible for your experience.  Ignore the problems you perceive in the community and pursue the aspects of the game and RP that you enjoy.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Unnamed Mercenary - 01-10-2016

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: I noticed today, there are lots of active new members around the past few weeks, with lots of questions. I also noticed those questions are not being answered as well, or with truthful answers as they should be.

How do you propose a fix to this?

As it is, a lot of the people who normally answer questions are pretty burnt out on it. A lot of people seem to ask the same questions over and over. There's no way to force people to search before asking, and even if there was, that wouldn't fix it. Do you feel like answering the questions and potentially linking sources from the game with NPC/FATE/item notes? Why should anyone else then?

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Mostly we are not a community at all.

We're a resource for people to meet, greet and find information. I see a lot of people stress that we need to somehow be a community. Why? There are a LOT of users on the site and it's been shown in countless threads that we're not a homogenous hivemind looking for the same things. Trying to force everyone to identify as a cohesive community means we'd exclude people who don't agree with what the general consensus wants and likes. The RPC isn't about that. It's here for people of all levels of immersion, RP ability and want for RP, whether that means people using the RPC to find extremely heavy-RP partners or for people who want to RP something completely non-lore compliant. Why force those groups (picked out from many examples) to have to say they're the same community when they are not?

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Many of the most prominent members of the community here, they don't want whats best for their fellow players. You can see it in the fake throw away comments that they make, you can see it in the way they conduct themselves, you can see it in the way they speak about their characters, but take little to no interest in yours

Aren't you doing exactly what you've complained about? I can only speak for myself, but when I post a welcome message to a new member, I look for their questions and usually try to provide a few answers. Sometimes that happens in PMs. Sometimes it happens in the thread. But what's "best" for a new person? That's a highly subjective question with a highly subjective answer. Some people are looking for character building help, others information, some are looking to jump right into RP before knowing anything, and others are looking to have everything done before they even look at RP.

Likewise, if I don't take interest in someone's character, I'd find it more disingenuous to try to force a connection there. Perhaps we just are compatible in our views on RP. There's nothing wrong with picking and choosing who I want to interact with. Am I going to miss out on some great people? Probably. But I'm also not complaining about a lack of contacts or RP. I have as much as a I want. If I want less, I'll pull back. If I want more, then it's on me to reach out and work on that.

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: All of that said, there are people in this community who go out of their way, to, on a weekly basis, make the community feeling known to others. They make events, they make themselves visible, but not in such a way as to boast themselves, rather in the sense that they can harbor the creative wills of all those who participate, and allow their group to prosper in inspiration and the connective force between the artist we have here.

That's awesome of the event creators! They put that extra time to help get people together. But what if that's not the RP I'm looking for? What if I have social anxiety that makes larger events difficult? What if I can't keep up with the chat scroll and feel I have no voice? What if the events are only happening at times I'm not able to login? Or even, what if I'm just not interested in the events?

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: The main thing here is: Ask yourself what sort of help you want, and what the source of that help is. Is the source of that help genuine or not, is it meant to truly help you and others, or is it a facade meant to increase a persons agenda of making themselves more popular, and then lastly ask yourself which of those you would want for you and your creative work.

Can you provide any examples of this disingenuous help? Where someone seems to only help to advance their popularity? That seems awfully judgemental of someone who normally doesn't respond to any welcome posts and very few of the question posts.

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: I will go into this further at a later time, but for now, let me just say, at it's start, RPC was different than the one you see today. I was there, I remember all of it, and sure there were members much like there are today, but none of them had power over anything, and they didn't make themselves as well known for fear of being shunned by those around who were committed to a united front or RPers, working hard to make the group that we had at the time, really agree and explore a new world together to suss out all there was to know about Eorzea. Now, we don't have that as much, now we are all apparently at war with one another over who's rp is better ( I know I know, hypocritical much?), or who can boast the biggest most ridiculous character, and all the groups and individuals are entrenched and battened down for the "long and hard" of RP community, which if you are reading this far in, there definitely is these days (in my opinion).

How's the RPC different? People have come and gone. I bet there's a lot of people who left when 1.0 was turned off that never returned for 2.0. I bet there's a BUNCH who moved onto different games or simply stopped playing FFXIV since the launch of 2.0.

How much of what you remember is objective? Can you pull statistics on how "helpful" or "nice" people were from then until now? Do you have proof? Is it possible that the moderation team then simply removed more posts than they do now? What about the community size? It's much more difficult to manage a larger, more diverse group of people than it is to keep track of a smaller, more similarly-minded one.

Where are these "war" threads? We've certainly had issues on a few particular topics, usually in regards to roleplaying as mages with soulstones, but I've yet to see anyone going "you're RP is invalid and/or wrong" due to it. The common answer I have seen is "that RP is not for me." Where are these people trying to boast ridiculous characters? And even if they are, why is that wrong? If it's fun for them, is it hurting you? Does it hurt your RP?

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Balmung, for all we intend it to be, for all we decided for ourselves to bring to it when the much more paltry number of us than we have now, decided to move to it, (I am gonna bold this to make a point obviously) is not ours. When we voted on it to be the RP server, we did not do so in a knowledge that we were taking it over, and gamers be damned if they don't RP. We are not some moral minority, we are now a wide-spread and well known part of Balmung, but as it ever was the case, we do not own it, and never will. We were meant to share it, though we ventured into it without acknowledging the opinions of those we have no conference with, see: Regular Non-RPer Gamers. But we had good intentions at the start of it.

Here's a line from our welcome section. It's also seen in our Linkshell Hall as well that the RPC aims to be server-agnostic, although it's heavily populated by Balmung players.

Quote:This website is meant to be a hub for all RPers in the world of FFXIV, regardless of server.

It's also important to know that Gilgamesh and Siren have their own websites for the RP on their servers as well. I've yet to see anyone here claim that Balmung is the -only- server someone can RP on. where has anyone ever said that RPers took over the server?

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Now with all that fresh in your mind, know this, when you refuse to play the game, the actual god honest game that FFXIV is, you are doing everyone a disservice. I know I know, once more hearken back to my above comments, and feed me the lines I gave just as I gave them, but the truth is the truth and I didn't choose it, nor is my "opinion" on the subject, merely something random and made up without factual basis. From the balking and the shouts and rants of Non-RPers on our server, it is the actual reality of it. Non-RPers basically hate us, and having discussed this with various parties both here and in game, I have to agree with some of their sentiments (the real sentiments, not the crazy internet troll ones, because I have both eyes and a brain, and can tell the difference).

Provide proof please. In the three years I've been involved with FFXIV, I have seen only a single thread between the RPC and the Offical Forums and NOTHING in game about PVE/Raid/Content-oriented players complaining about the Roleplayers. It's also completely silly to think that there's even that much of a divide. Perhaps your experiences vary, but many of the RPers I know are very focussed on progression content and clearing the game, whether for glory or glamor. The mindset that RPers don't play the game is outdated. Even on the RPC, we've had a number of threads and linkshells mades about coordinating PVE content and raids.

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Can this be fixed? I dunno, not sure at all about that one, there will always be the forum trolls, the big-headed folk with their blind lackeys, been doing this sort of thing a long time, and never seen anything different. The world at large supports a more sociopathic sort than it ever has before, both with "educated" and "normal" folk, so it becomes a really hard balance of who to trust with certain things. Would the change come on a large scale? No I don't think so, and there would be little point in trying because of the kind of upheaval it would take, and the number of people it would leave behind, it is not worth that. BUT, I do think that the slow and steady rising voices of those who want our community to change, and be a better and more unified community, could help this, and take it to a balanced level, where not everything is one way or the other, and supports good and creative folks who want to RP, but don't want to wade through the nonsense presented to them at their entrance into the community. This idea is naturally devoid of my own opinions on the subject of what "good" or "creative" RP are, and there is a reason for that, because those are highly opinionated, and highly varying words in their individual meanings. But as a whole, the idea I have placed before you is not hinged on what these words mean to you, but rather on the subjects I have more directly addressed.

Provide some feedback on how things can be fixed. So far, you've pointed out issues to you personally, but what comes from that? An argument like "I can tell if food is bad even if I can't cook" doesn't work in collaborative effort-based activity like roleplay.

What is a more "sociopathic" person meant to refer to?

Again, what benefits do you think would come from trying to force the RPC to be a cohesive community? How can you be sure the people you are in communication with represent the site as a whole? Out of all the users, only a very small portion of people on the website are active on any consistent basis. You can see this from post count and time spent online. We have a LOT of people who do not post regularly. Perhaps they made a wiki and a welcome post and that was all they wanted to do?

(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: To end this, those of you who know me, what sort I am, who are friendly with me, who have RPed with me, who know Momo at all (many do not, I don't RP with a huge number of people, because I like more intimate relationships in RP (coughcough, not -that- kind of intimate)), you probably know I have opinions. You probably know as well, that I am not a totally unreasonable individual, and that I do think about things before I say them, I doubt I could have written on this subject at length without discussing it and observing it for some time now, and without some passion in my truths and opinions. I, am ever, of the mind that one should RP what they want, but I am also of the mind that I will also not share your opinion or your RP should they go directly against what I find to be within the limits of reason for "good" "lore-compliant" or "creative" RP.

I don't know you. I've never RPed with you. And I have no method of verifying anything you've claimed because you've given no sources.

I can make an assumption that you're a reasonable adult, although the RPC has had cases where people have not been reasonable adults. Or mature adults. Or even adults at all! The website is rated as PG-13/low-M as stated in the rules. That's not a strict 18+ requirement.

I can tell you're passionate about the subject you've written on. But I do not agree with many of the things you have written. I've tried to point out some of the things you've written as "truth" that I believe is based on opinion. You say that you both want people to RP what they want, but then you want them to subscribe you your personal views of what's "OK" to RP. That's a contradiction.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - McBeefâ„¢ - 01-10-2016

Plz move thread to no mods land k thx.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Unnamed Mercenary - 01-10-2016

(01-10-2016, 07:06 PM)McBeef© Wrote: Plz move thread to no mods land k thx.

Why does this thread need to go there?

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Aaron - 01-10-2016

So we can shit post it without repercussions.

I'm just saying what I assume her reason was.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Faye - 01-10-2016

Momo ily but I'm afraid I have no idea what you're saying. ;_; Everything is vague and rambling around any clear point and honestly tl;dr. But to chime in on the few things I can understand that stood out to me, nowadays I'm one of the people who "doesn't do anything but RP" so I'm gonna have to say I disagree there. People who don't engage in PvE, PvP, crafting, or gathering are doing nothing that actually damages the game, other players, or the server's community. The only argument that could be made is that they are taking up space on an already full server that others are trying to join, but even then, they paid for their account and they're paying for their sub, and they're interacting with the RP community on what's largely become the "RP server," so I think they deserve to take up that space. Aside from that, the worst it does is stop someone from contributing company credits to their FC, which is a matter for FC's to sort out on an individual basis.

It's just not really fair to tell someone that they're playing wrong or that they need to stop playing when they're doing something that 100% doesn't affect others. I know people who are not necessarily good at the game itself due to disability or illness, or even just age (knew a 63-year-old grandmother who had a lot of trouble with PvE and was constantly frustrated with the game). I know a lot of people who like the game, but find it boring currently, but they still want to remain involved and in touch with their FFXIV friends, so they just RP instead. And I can't blame them for that; the combat in this game is not thrilling, and most of the endgame trials and dungeons are too similar or otherwise dull, and the gear grind for max ilvl is painful with little payoff.

In my own scenario, I have a laptop that can barely run the game and I struggle in a lot of endgame content due to my PC issues. Plus, on top of that, I'm busy. Not necessarily busy IRL (though I do lose a lot of time there), but busy in the game. I have an FC to run, linkshells to run or help out with, RP events to host or attend, I have people frequently messaging me to chat or RP. Basically, I do my best to be one of those people you describe who try to make this feel like community, but I can't do it all. I've chosen socializing and role-play over actually playing the game itself because not only is what it is actually probably better for the community, but because it's what I enjoy.

No one can put their all into helping other people, being invested in the RP characters of other people, hosting RP events, and still find the energy and enjoyment to make their own role-play creative and engaging while also maintaining significant and steady playtime in the game itself (unless maybe they have no RL obligations). The things you're wanting are kind of at odds with each other.

As for the RPC, it hasn't changed. Not since 2.0, at least. I'm sure it has since 1.0, but I haven't been around that long and neither have probably the majority of the people here. The site has been tweaked, rules have been changed, the roster of mods and members have both changed, but the content and community here is the same. It only "changes" when someone becomes aware of the problems. For some people it takes more time because they want to see the best in things, for some people they can turn a blind eye to the problems until the problems begin affecting them or their friends, but the bottom line is the problems were always actually there. The RPC doesn't change, our understanding of it does. And that's not me ragging on the RPC. Every RP hub has problems, especially one on this scale. It's inevitable. I gotta agree with Virella that this is just dramatizing things.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Caspar - 01-10-2016

I understand a few of your complaints, but the overall posting is a bit too cluttered and non-focused to really address properly. If you want more earnest answers, consider restructuring this topic into a few more focused, specific essays rather than one big one.

It does seem like things are blown out of proportion here. I want RPers to engage with the PVE more, but that is because of my personal biases. I am not comfortable playing a pay-monthly game without at least attempting to do most of the content. Therefore for me raiding is mandatory, at least on one of my characters. It is not for other people and I'm okay with that. I would like for the average player to own their role more and take responsibility for their behavior in PVE content, but that's their own choice, not mine.

I also think that I'm fine with the RPC not being a cohesive community. It would mean extensively enforced standards, and potentially less diversity of character concepts. The oppressive "quality control" older MMO RPers boast about on here from previous games holds little appeal to me, even if I appreciate standards and rules on a more innate level.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Asmodean - 01-10-2016

(01-10-2016, 08:24 PM)Caspar Wrote: I also think that I'm fine with the RPC not being a cohesive community. It would mean extensively enforced standards, and potentially less diversity of character concepts. The oppressive "quality control" older MMO RPers boast about on here from previous games holds little appeal to me, even if I appreciate standards and rules on a more innate level.

This I have to agree with. I'm hard enough on myself when it comes to my attempts at rp, so I really don't need others piling on.

Now I have no idea what caused this topic to spring up, but a number of points seem more like overreactions. I have seen a few non-rpers try to troll rps or even have long rant in shout but that has been quite rare. I also have never seen anyone say you can only rp on Balmung, only that it the place you are most likely to find other rpers. I'm sure there are things I haven't seen but from my experience, I can only see some of these points just being over blowing.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - ArmachiA - 01-10-2016

I actually agree that the RPC has changed (Whether for better or for worse really depends on perspective and is a completely different conversation) but the rest of it is iffy. RPC 1.0 wasn't a community either, in fact Kylin did his damndest to make sure that the RPC DIDN'T control RP on the server. I was around and a mod during the beginning and I can tell you people tried REALLY hard to " control" the server, even leaving the RPC all together when they weren't strict enough on RPers the they didn't agree with. I can show you some old threads on my FC's forum about the behind the scenes antics of some people trying to take control of players and how Kylin was real quick to shut that down. He understood that this was a hub, not a community and he didn't feel comfortable trying to enforce rules on people and shun the ones who didn't agree.
As much as this forum doesn't really like to admit it, some people are considered "Popular" rpers and will get more slack from the community than others, but that doesn't mean those people are doing EVERYTHING for their own gain either. Sure, they may make a smart alec comment in a thread so people go "ahaha that sure is so and so! What a troll they are!" but I don't think people are being helpful for personal gain? How would one do that anyway? To add someone to the list of people who like them?
To be honest I'm not sure what you're getting at with that part, it would be nice if you came in and clarified.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - Rusty Knight - 01-10-2016

I'd echo everyone else when commenting the formatting really needs to be sorted out on the OP, it was a painful read.

As for the topic at hand, communities develop overtime and its very easy to look back with nostalgia goggles and compare the past to the present.

Trying to prevent the community changing naturally as it continues to grow is the same as standing on the beach and trying to stop the tide coming in. It simply doesn't work. Unfortunately the sheer amount of content in the OP makes it difficult to challenge, however the vast majority of it seems to be unfounded and/or opinion.

People will do what they want at the end of the day. You should focus on doing what you find most enjoyable in your valuable time and stick to it.

RE: Our FFXIV RP - V'aleera - 01-10-2016

(01-10-2016, 07:01 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: We've certainly had issues on a few particular topics, usually in regards to roleplaying as mages with soulstones, but I've yet to see anyone going "you're RP is invalid and/or wrong" due to it. The common answer I have seen is "that RP is not for me."
Disagree. In almost every single thread about contentious rp subjects there is a small chorus of people asserting that the roleplay being discussed is wrong, often going as far as ignoring established lore to do it. Expressions of tolerance for other people roleplaying "wrong" are typically secondary to informing people their RP is "wrong".

Also, there isn't a single person on this site I'd consider a "leader". "Loud" would be more accurate.