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(01-11-2014, 04:57 PM)Naunet Wrote: It might just be you, or just be me, but tbh, I don't give a rat's patootie how "Final Fantasy" this MMO is. It's an MMO, not a single player RPG. I never played any Final Fantasy games before this, but even if I had, I don't think this would change my opinion. It makes zero sense to tell roleplayers they cannot rp as a particular class (job, whatever you want to call it) when they damn well can level up a white mage, alongside the fifty bazillion other people who choose to level up a white mage.
I think this is a silly thing to hang one's "This is what it means to be Final Fantasy" hat on, as certainly the job system, or the themes of the jobs, or the aesthetic and music, or the common monsters, or any number of other things are far more fundamental to the game and are arguably more "Final Fantasy" than a very single player-only friendly story (which is shared by all single player RPGs ever in the history of single player RPGs).
You've got gameplay and you've got story. Very separate things. You need a healing class. You need a tank class. You need damage dealers. It's the holy trinity. In a story, you don't necessarily need these things. You have people RPing lancers who face 1v1 against beasts they could never in game. You can gear your ARC/BRD to never miss an enemy, but if you never missed in story you'd be godmoding. And you don't see any NPCs mastering multiple Jobs, yet that is a key selling point of this MMO.
But there's a reason the jobs are created so exclusive. Because they weren't always in the game. When this game started and the original lore was written there was only the classes. In order to make this game an actual Final Fantasy game, the classic FF jobs were written in. Now, how do you explain their absence in the game before without retconning the whole thing? You make them ancient, you make them legendary, you make them secret, you make them forbidden, you make them exclusive. There's only so many options. Otherwise they wouldn't be special and the whole point was that Eorzea needed special. They needed something more powerful than what they had to stand against the threat of annihilation.Â
That's really what the game is about, in-game and out of game. It's about a company that needed to bring Final Fantasy back into their MMO or else sink. What's more Final Fantasy than the original jobs from the original games? The games that actually succeeded and we fans think highly on. You'll find near unanimous love for FF IV, VI, VII, VIII, and IX. But you'll find a much more varied response to the later games like X, X-2, XII, XIII. Games that broke away from FF traditions to meet modern standards.Â
Now, I know you don't give a rat's patootie about all the reasons behind it. As I've said time and again it comes down to whether you wish to respect the lore as written by the creators or not. Neither is right or wrong, but the game lore isn't changing, so you've got to make that choice.
In my own personal opinion, if you say to hell with the lore because it's just inconvenient, then you aren't role playing or being a role player. You're fanfictioning, which is something quite different. Isn't the point of roleplaying to limit yourself into the role/social norms of a character as part of a predetermined story? So choose a role.
You want to be a healer? You can drop yourself into the role of the conjurer. A mage that manipulates the aether around them and upon meditation crafts a spell from that aether. Drop into the role of a Chirurgeon. Healers of modern medicine. But I wanna be a White Mage! A user of Succor. Actually not that hard to come up with ways to become one that don't break lore.Â
Anyone remember Brother Morys from 1.0 CNJ quest? An Ishgardian boy lost in the Wood, accrued Greenwrath and became a servant of the Elementals. He lost his memories and became a powerful conjurer. The Elementals gave him a gift. Combine that with the 1.0 WHM quest. Oha-Sok bestows upon you the power of Succor, even gives up his own body to become your very robes. So in two minutes I just came up with a character that was taken by the Elementals and became a Wildling. He now heals the Wood as he wanders it, a lost soul. There's several directions I can go to from here. What other ways? There's the obvious roleplay a Padjal. A-Towa-Cant wandered Eorzea healing the land and exploring everywhere he could. What's to say your Padjal can't either. A-Towa-Cant also had an apprentice. That apprentice could have had one too. So long as it's kept secret, and un-abused, the Elementals won't destroy the world. You can be an Elemental in human physical form. It's never happened in game, but Elementals take all forms in 1.0 storyline. One becomes your robes. And just because you are one, doesn't mean you go around telling people.Â
Maybe this will get me some hate, but I urge roleplayers to not ignore the lore. It's beautiful and it's there for a reason. Restrictive, if you're lazy, but all good stories revolve around extraordinary people who do things many others can't. You don't have to be a special snowflake to make a story-worthy character though. You just have to use your imagination. And the more you try to stick to the lore to the best of your knowledge, the more incredible others will find your story.