Mason Wrote:1) Send SE mass emails about having an RP server. If they do, we wont have to pick one and it'll be easier for newbies to find us even if they don't look for any kind of a coalition or guild ahead of time (I know I didn't in FFXI). Also it gives power to the RP'ers to call a place theirs, meaning if someone decides to grief or call us out they will obviously be in the wrong place, wrong server, and we can tell them that. There are many obvious reasons to have an official RP server. What do you all think about drafting a letter to SE? First we can send just one from Castiel and see if they respond, and what they say if they do. Next of course if they don't we mass email them, 'cause we all know sometimes SE doesn't respond unless they are hit over the head with it.
This is something to definately discuss. While it seems like it would be great to have an "official" RP server created by SE, there are some who are opposed to it. Originally, I myself thought it would benefit us to have SE designate one for us. But a few people have brought up some interesting points that could make it actually a bad thing. For starters, FF14 won't have any other "special" labeled servers like other games do (such as PVP servers and so on). That means it could look something like this on the server selection screen:
Atomos
Chocobo
Cid (Roleplaying)
Ifrit
Shiva
Since the Cid server would be the only "special" server, it may cause everyone to flock to it expecting it to offer something that may not be what they expect. Thus, we could end up becoming an overpopulated server much like Odin was/is on FFXI. That would suck for us considering so many of us like to create alts for RP purposes. Being locked out of your own server would really be detrimental to the RP community and the last thing we would want is for SE to create a -second- RP server to offset that problem. That would just divide an already relatively small population. This is exactly what happened in Everquest II. They had a single RP server, Antonia Bayle. It became the largest server in the game and forced Sony to create a second RP server, Lucan De'Lere (sp?). This thus divided the overall RP community, sending those tired of the flood of non-RPers and server instability to the new server while keeping others behind.
There's also the fact that the extremely casual RPer could get put off, expecting such a server to not delve into endgame as deeply as other servers. While definately a misconception, it could still hinder the community when people think that kind of thing.
Obviously there are pros and cons to both sides of the debate and I'd love to hear other points of view.
Mason Wrote:2) Writing contest on how to implement RPC as an IC concept. This is mainly for the future when we get more lore and such. Before the game goes live, we can try to implement the RPC In-Character. Do you want RPC as an in-character entity? I prefer to have OOC things somehow transfer over to IC, even in a loose way. Let me know what you guys think.
I would personally love creating some sort of IC organization out of the RPC where maybe the initials stood for something else or something. Obviously, it may not be a good idea to give the group any IC "powers" but it would be cool to be able to refer to it somehow in an IC fashion. I've already set up the forums in a way that resembles some kind of headquarters to help possibly facilitate that. The question is, how do we create an IC concept out of it without putting off certain groups (thieves, knights, necromancers, etc)?
