(07-19-2013, 10:15 AM)doctorgalactic Wrote: I hate to say this, as I am absolutely loving this discussion, but isn't this lore-abiding view of Dragoons a bit... elitist? Â Trust me, I am fully aware of what an ironic statement that is. Â But we have to look at the gameplay mechanic as well as backstory to make any of this work. Â
To become a Dragoon, in game, you have to level your Lancer class.  I don't think anyone will disagree with that.  Uther, I read your backstory, and it's interesting as hell with one caveat: the only way that your story works (and by proxy, the Dragoon class) is if you were already a Dragoon before the events of the game.  All things being equal once ARR rolls out, how do we explain the masses of folks that have the same intentions and aspirations that you do (to become a Dragoon) without the backstory of them already being one?  I hate to point out the obvious, but excluding RP, Ishgard is not a starting city-state, and as far as mechanics go, if you want to fly into the Dragoon class swiftly, you're starting as a Lancer in Gridania.  Now, you can RP that you're a Dragoon in the meantime, but for me personally, that doesn't allow for RPvE opportunities, which is something that appeals to me.  It seems that taking a 'you don't know what it means to be a real Dragoon' approach to anyone who works towards that Job without a lore-centric background could potentially make things difficult in the future.  This is an honest question: How then, IC, would Uther explain the multitude of other players running around with the Dragoon class?  OOC,as far as I know the jobisn't some random scripted in-game event that selects random PC's to be worthy of the title, it's something that has to be initiated by the PC.  It is something to strive for.  Of course people are going to strive for it, that's not confusing to me at all.  I get the analogy of the Mongolian Swordsman wanting to be a Templar, and it's a good one, but that's not what this is.  Which indeed brings me to my point.
Kayle isn't a Dragoon!  His father wasn't a Dragoon, his step-father wasn't a Dragoon.  (resolved in a previous post)  It's a childhood aspiration.  I could have just made him a Lancer, like his father before him, and worked my way up the ladder to becoming a Dragoon, as the gameplay mechanics demands.  But instead I forced another role upon Kayle due to circumstance.  Does that mean he still doesn't have aspirations?  Of course not.  To play off of your analogy, let's say some kid from the slums who's great a basketball has dreams of becoming an astronaut.  That doesn't strike me as odd at all.  Does it mean he'll become and astronaut?  Not necessarily.  Does it mean he can't become one?  Absolutely not!  I am aware that there are in game restrictions to the Dragoon, and to be honest, Kayle has no idea what they are.  To him they are childhood stories, mythical figures that are rarely seen in public.  And that intrigues the hell out of him.
Well, you bring up some good points, and you're definitely not wrong. Your main point seems to be "How are all these non-Ishgard Dragoons walking around if they only come from Ishgard? And how are you going to react to it?"Â
My answer to how I plan on seeing it from an IC perspective is that they fight like dragoons and have most likely trained with dragoons, but by actual definition they are not dragoons. They're not among the ranks of Ishgard's holy knights, despite them fighting in the same style. To aspire to learn from dragoons is a much more realistic approach than aspiring to be a dragoon. To the layman, the term "dragoon" would be associated with the fighting style they're known for. For instance, the average Joe would call any extremely skilled lancer who knows how to do the dragoon abilities a dragoon, while in actuality it refers to the specific unit of Ishgardian holy lancers... If that makes sense.
To go into a little more depth, if Uther meets someone who is playing the dragoon class but is not a servant of Halone, from Ishgard, or tested by the Dragon's Eye, and they say "I'm a dragoon." He'll interpret that as "I've studied the fighting style of dragoons." and not literally "I'm a dragoon."Â
If I learn Shaolin Boxing, I can use that as a defining characteristic of myself as a fighter, but it doesn't make me a Shaolin Monk. It also doesn't make me any less of a fighter than actual Shaolin Monks if I've put the training into it. They just have a more all-encompassing view of their martial art.
That was kind of sloppy explanation, but I hope it made sense.
I have no problem with people not from Ishgard playing the dragoon class. I'm not going to run around yelling "DRAGOONS ARE ONLY FROM ISHGARD!" I will just interpret the character as someone learning from an exiled dragoon or some such.Â
But really, when it comes down to it, the only way to become a full-fledged official dragoon according to the lore of the game is to stand before the Dragon's Eye in Ishgard. You have to be a soldier in their holy war, and by that note you have to worship Halone. Anything else, and you're not really a dragoon. You may be called a dragoon because you have the same physical training, sure. But as far as a life philosophy and personal code goes, you're just not. To put in another real-world analogy, I can practice kendo for years and years and be better than everyone else in the world. It doesn't make me a samurai.
At the risk of rambling some more, I'll just say there's a difference between the dragoon class and the lore dragoons. That being said, I'm not going to attack anyone for saying they were born in Limsa and they're a dragoon now. It's just one of those words that has sort of two definitions. It's all about context.