*I'm a newbie to roleplaying and this site in general so forgive me if I sound ignorant*
To me two different ideas seem to be conflated here.
1) stories that we 'make up' about our characters (ie they're Doman, Garlean)
2) Things that are an actual fact and possible to do within the game (ie a Miqo'te Dragoon)
Honestly, I'm of the opinion that if the game lets you do it, then it IS within the lore. You CAN be a Miqo'te Dragoon; the game doesn't gate you from doing that. However you CANNOT be Doman - you're given the choice of 3 city states to hail from.
Sounsyy is spot on and this touches on what I feel is markedly different about XIV compared to most other MMO's. It's a very multicultural MMO and we don't bat an eyelid if we see an Roegadyn Garlean or a Lalafellin Doman. I've always, personally, felt it went without saying that the races are all pretty well-spread, even if there's a 'majority' (eg Roe's in Limsa) you still see a pretty good mix.
I played XI for a long time and it was very far removed from this - you'd never see Elezen's hanging out in Windurst like it was nothing! But XIV is not like that at all and honestly, I think the race's lore/background is fairly weak and malleable, so people can 'be' whatever they want.
Also as pointed out we don't really know enough about Ala Mhigo/Domans/Garleans to truly say what is lore-breaking and what isn't. So I'm of the opinion that if we don't know, it doesn't bother me.
It would seem that the only way to keep everyone ELSE happy and not try to make your character too 'lore breaking', conflict with others OR seem too 'super special unique' would be for everyone to have characters as dull as dishwater, and obviously that is not going to happen. I mean, it's funny coming from me because my character IS pretty boring and has no special background or powers, but I would wager to say most people like to have something special about them. So RPing seems like a bit of a paradox in itself, you're always going to have these issues, but anyway, I digress.
To me two different ideas seem to be conflated here.
1) stories that we 'make up' about our characters (ie they're Doman, Garlean)
2) Things that are an actual fact and possible to do within the game (ie a Miqo'te Dragoon)
Honestly, I'm of the opinion that if the game lets you do it, then it IS within the lore. You CAN be a Miqo'te Dragoon; the game doesn't gate you from doing that. However you CANNOT be Doman - you're given the choice of 3 city states to hail from.
Sounsyy is spot on and this touches on what I feel is markedly different about XIV compared to most other MMO's. It's a very multicultural MMO and we don't bat an eyelid if we see an Roegadyn Garlean or a Lalafellin Doman. I've always, personally, felt it went without saying that the races are all pretty well-spread, even if there's a 'majority' (eg Roe's in Limsa) you still see a pretty good mix.
I played XI for a long time and it was very far removed from this - you'd never see Elezen's hanging out in Windurst like it was nothing! But XIV is not like that at all and honestly, I think the race's lore/background is fairly weak and malleable, so people can 'be' whatever they want.
Also as pointed out we don't really know enough about Ala Mhigo/Domans/Garleans to truly say what is lore-breaking and what isn't. So I'm of the opinion that if we don't know, it doesn't bother me.
It would seem that the only way to keep everyone ELSE happy and not try to make your character too 'lore breaking', conflict with others OR seem too 'super special unique' would be for everyone to have characters as dull as dishwater, and obviously that is not going to happen. I mean, it's funny coming from me because my character IS pretty boring and has no special background or powers, but I would wager to say most people like to have something special about them. So RPing seems like a bit of a paradox in itself, you're always going to have these issues, but anyway, I digress.
