Welcome to Eorzea and RPC! There's been a lot of great advice so far, so here's my two gil~
Like Zen said above, roleplay is collaborative writing and your character should be fun for you and hopefully fun for others. In general, this means: the more widely available you make your character, the wider range of RP partners you can enjoy. It's not that playing a WoL or a canon character is wrong, per say, just that it limits your scope of who you can RP with in the community. If you find a group of people who play a higher level of power or a group of WoL characters doing the MSQ, then making a more powerful, WoL level character makes sense. If you're wanting to play canon characters, you find a group of people who are into that thing - and there are plenty out there who enjoy that! But it can also be as simple as making a Wood Wailer character that may limit a good bit of your RP to what's going on in Gridania. On Balmung, and sort of as an extension, Mateus too, you'll appeal to the widest range of roleplayers by playing the "everyday" folk.
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Why not both! Make a character you want to play on Balmung and either the same or different character on Mateus and see which server you prefer?
Mateus is a newer, yet thriving, community where people are trying to hash out new plots and experiences. There's not as high of a population there, but from what I've heard it doesn't hinder anyone finding RP if they're looking for it. Balmung is an older, more established server with myriad communities of different levels and experience. A new person can just as easily find their place here as they have in the past when Balmung was an open server. There's more RP, but you may not be able to push into all of it and many new people find that daunting. But your experiences may vary!
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You have a great starting concept already! A Hyuran chef/waitress from La Noscea trying to hack it in the biggest port city in Eorzea. For some people, that's more than enough to get started. Others like to come up with a more detailed backstory.
For that, knowing a little bit of world building lore can help, (And if you need help on that, just gimme a shout and I can see what I can do!) but isn't always 100% necessary. There's plenty to learn from reading random NPC dialogue and doing the small side quests that litter the map. Here's a little bit of lore on the Bismarck, for example:
There's also plenty of towns, hamlets, and villages across La Noscea (the southern region of Vylbrand where Limsa Lominsa sits) that your character could be from. Several of them have no names, so you can be from any of these. There's some like Brookhaven, Halfstone, or Quarterstone that were destroyed by Sahagin and no longer exist. You can be from one of the current towns you see in game also. Talk around to the NPCs there to find out a bit about the town and see if it's a good fit for your character!
As you can see in the dialogue above, there's plenty of Lominsans who don't speak with a Lominsan accent or the infamous "pirate talk." So no matter where your character is from you can speak how you feel comfortable. Or, if you wish to have your character have an accent, something as simple as /em speaks in a mild Lominsan accent, "Is there anything I can get you to drink?"
Finally, using Rogue/Ninja as your going-around class of your Chef is totally okay! Class/Game Mechanics do not always equal character. If you don't want your character to jump around and fillet things with obnoxiously large knives, that's totally okay! Most people don't bat an eye at people using a class's aesthetic as simply that, aesthetic. For instance, my main character often uses the Machinist class because it has a gun. But my character isn't a Machinist. She's a musketeer in Limsa. But the muskets the Maelstrom and Yellowjackets use aren't available to use, so I handwave it.
I have a chef character myself. She's a Hyur from Thavnair. Most of my outfits use the Culinarian class, but she also has warrior and monk leveled. Monk is a nice casual, walking around class because I can glamour the weapons away. She's not a fighter, at all. She's not a warrior, she's not a monk. She can't even really punch someone right. And she's not a culinarian for the Bismarck, but I use the aesthetic for clothes and RP. It works for me.
Hope this helps some! ^^
(10-21-2017, 11:46 PM)BluSparkle98 Wrote: Warrior of Light/Mary Sue/Main character syndrome are all no-nos. Canon characters. So the core idea; make an interesting character for myself to play and others to play with. No super mega god. No annoying main character antics. Not an annoying jerk who no one wants to play with.
Like Zen said above, roleplay is collaborative writing and your character should be fun for you and hopefully fun for others. In general, this means: the more widely available you make your character, the wider range of RP partners you can enjoy. It's not that playing a WoL or a canon character is wrong, per say, just that it limits your scope of who you can RP with in the community. If you find a group of people who play a higher level of power or a group of WoL characters doing the MSQ, then making a more powerful, WoL level character makes sense. If you're wanting to play canon characters, you find a group of people who are into that thing - and there are plenty out there who enjoy that! But it can also be as simple as making a Wood Wailer character that may limit a good bit of your RP to what's going on in Gridania. On Balmung, and sort of as an extension, Mateus too, you'll appeal to the widest range of roleplayers by playing the "everyday" folk.
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(10-21-2017, 11:46 PM)BluSparkle98 Wrote: SO! Here are my main two questions; I actually lucked out and have a character on Balmung! I havent played them in literal years, but I have one! I also know Mateus is unlocked and is also considered an RP server. Is there any preference between the two?
Why not both! Make a character you want to play on Balmung and either the same or different character on Mateus and see which server you prefer?
Mateus is a newer, yet thriving, community where people are trying to hash out new plots and experiences. There's not as high of a population there, but from what I've heard it doesn't hinder anyone finding RP if they're looking for it. Balmung is an older, more established server with myriad communities of different levels and experience. A new person can just as easily find their place here as they have in the past when Balmung was an open server. There's more RP, but you may not be able to push into all of it and many new people find that daunting. But your experiences may vary!
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(10-21-2017, 11:46 PM)BluSparkle98 Wrote: As for personality and backstory, this is where I really start to freeze up.
You have a great starting concept already! A Hyuran chef/waitress from La Noscea trying to hack it in the biggest port city in Eorzea. For some people, that's more than enough to get started. Others like to come up with a more detailed backstory.
For that, knowing a little bit of world building lore can help, (And if you need help on that, just gimme a shout and I can see what I can do!) but isn't always 100% necessary. There's plenty to learn from reading random NPC dialogue and doing the small side quests that litter the map. Here's a little bit of lore on the Bismarck, for example:
There's also plenty of towns, hamlets, and villages across La Noscea (the southern region of Vylbrand where Limsa Lominsa sits) that your character could be from. Several of them have no names, so you can be from any of these. There's some like Brookhaven, Halfstone, or Quarterstone that were destroyed by Sahagin and no longer exist. You can be from one of the current towns you see in game also. Talk around to the NPCs there to find out a bit about the town and see if it's a good fit for your character!
As you can see in the dialogue above, there's plenty of Lominsans who don't speak with a Lominsan accent or the infamous "pirate talk." So no matter where your character is from you can speak how you feel comfortable. Or, if you wish to have your character have an accent, something as simple as /em speaks in a mild Lominsan accent, "Is there anything I can get you to drink?"
Finally, using Rogue/Ninja as your going-around class of your Chef is totally okay! Class/Game Mechanics do not always equal character. If you don't want your character to jump around and fillet things with obnoxiously large knives, that's totally okay! Most people don't bat an eye at people using a class's aesthetic as simply that, aesthetic. For instance, my main character often uses the Machinist class because it has a gun. But my character isn't a Machinist. She's a musketeer in Limsa. But the muskets the Maelstrom and Yellowjackets use aren't available to use, so I handwave it.
I have a chef character myself. She's a Hyur from Thavnair. Most of my outfits use the Culinarian class, but she also has warrior and monk leveled. Monk is a nice casual, walking around class because I can glamour the weapons away. She's not a fighter, at all. She's not a warrior, she's not a monk. She can't even really punch someone right. And she's not a culinarian for the Bismarck, but I use the aesthetic for clothes and RP. It works for me.
Hope this helps some! ^^
