Introduction And A Few Newbie Questions - Printable Version +- Hydaelyn Role-Players (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18) +-- Forum: RPC (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=25) +--- Forum: Welcome Desk (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=10) +--- Thread: Introduction And A Few Newbie Questions (/showthread.php?tid=7069)

Introduction And A Few Newbie Questions - Lord Zask - 05-02-2014 Hello everyone! My name is Zask, and I'm a brand new player, having just installed the game around an hour ago.  I'm a long time player of MMOs and most video games in general, and I've been RPing for about three years now. Although it's mostly been with my small group of online friends and not really any sort of 'walk-up and say hi to strangers' style interaction. I finally decided to give this game a try after I became bored of running dungeons in GW2 and so far I'm liking what I've read/seen online about it. However I've yet to actually play the game past the character creator (which I spent a while in. I'm big on character creation, heh).  The primary reason for this is that I'd like to play with as many RPers as possible, as I'm not very good at starting RP with others myself and I was hoping to see some 'out in the wild' to take tips from.  Also I just like watching people RP. Anyways, besides my being a creeper, my main question is this: I've done my research and decided that I'd like to play on the Balmung (I believe that's how it's spelled?) server. As it seems to offer the highest number of RPers per square inch, and that's what I'm looking for.  However, the server seems to also be quite full. Now I've browsed the forums here and seen people mention waiting until off times to join a server. I was wondering if anyone could give me an idea of the best times to attempt and sneak my way in? Also, for a totally different type of question, I'm a first-time FF series player. Never touched a single FF game once in my life or payed them much attention, really. (Nothing against the FF series, it just never ended up on my radar until now). Anyways, I understand that the lore for this game draws on all this established canon and history, and I'm simply a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to take it all in. As an RPer, I really do try and make characters that fit into the established world I'm working in, both in name and 'style' (if that makes sense). But I'm slightly worried about finally working up the courage to RP and looking like a fool because I mucked up and made something that goes against the lore.  My actual question, (hidden in all this text. Yes, it's there), is this: Can I kinda 'pick up' enough lore by simply playing the game to RP well? I'm a weirdo by nature, so I read quest text and like picking up lore items and learning about the world I'm in. (My Skyrim house is full of books. Lydia is not pleased). So it's not like I'd be going out of my way to do this, I'm just wondering if it would give me a good enough grasp of the world to at least look like I know what I'm doing. (Wow, that's a wall of text right there. Sorry, I do tend to ramble on at times.) If you managed to read all that without falling asleep, then thank you for your time. I'm very excited about playing this game and interacting with the RP community, and I will eagerly await the no doubt titanic flood of responses to this behemoth of a post. RE: Introduction And A Few Newbie Questions - Sounsyy - 05-02-2014 Welcome! I think I just made a similar post on another new player's wall. Lore can be found in bits and pieces throughout Eorzea. Via quests or random NPC conversations. One of the best places to get Lore in game is to talk to Class and Job Quest NPCs after you've completed their questline. But the game does not hand you lore. Most often you have to actively seek it out, and for those instances, I find some of the following links to be the most helpful. Lore Hot-spots: -Official Lore Forum -Race Heights -Azurymber's Lore Guide -An Eorzean Timeline -FFXIV Maps -The Grand Companies of Eorzea -Eorzean Newspaper Articles -The Autumn War -The Lore Train -1.0 Lominsan Story Arc Discussion -1.0 Ul'dahn Story Arc Discussion -1.0 Gridanian Story Arc Discussion -Gamer Escape Interviews Fernehalwes -Time Measurement in Eorzea -Eorzean Units of Measurement Hope this helps! ^^ RE: Introduction And A Few Newbie Questions - Unnamed Mercenary - 05-05-2014 Hi Zask, Welcome to the community! I'm also fairly new to the RP community here, but without the past RP experience.  For Balmung, the server's usually closed off to new characters during what I'd refer to "daylight" American hours, so about 8AM Pacific Time to about Midnight Pacific time. Square Enix does have a list of the servers and their current creation status available on the lodestone, which is our main source of official news from Square-Enix. http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/  For lore, Sounsyy's post has a lot of resources. There are also some recorded cutscenes from Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, which are on youtube, if you're looking for some additional backstory, or events before The Calamity.  If you make it onto Balmung, feel free to send me a tell (/tell [character name] is how private messages are handled in-game) to Frhanz'ir Kirche, and I can help you out with any quests/leveling. Balmung has an excellent community. RE: Introduction And A Few Newbie Questions - Evie - 05-05-2014 One of my FC mates managed to get a character on around 10pm West Coast. She also tried early morning and afternoon, etc, with no luck. It just a matter of keeping an eye on it when you can unfortunately. I'd suggest having your character pre-made and saved so you just have to load, choose birthday, god, give it a name, choose class, and then server. Makes the process quick, as I don't expect it to stay open very long when the window does open.