Fulcrum

Sadly, it's very in character for Dwynd to not bother with introductions; the FFXIV crowd is one of the few RP groups that assuming one knows someone's name because it's hovering over their head isn't a majority thing, which is kinda lovely.

I got a screenshot of a bit of the chaos before the event started rolling. It's centred on Dwynd, cus I liked how ze ended up perching rather than sitting on zir butt.

Aside from a group really wanting to throttle Merri, I think the event went pretty well~! =P

This is the impression I got from everything I saw in the newer story for non-Legacy characters; I may be biased though, because I personally have CPTSD and I know plenty of soldiers and victims of war who have PTSD. The whole "Foggy Memory Syndrome" actually struck me as being more like war-time PTSD, where the memories of the events become blurred and fragmented because the mind can't handle everything it witnessed. I go the impression that the bulk of the NPCs (up through level 15 or so) who ever talk about the memory issues surrounding the Calamity weren't directly at the battle, or at least weren't close enough to see all of it. They likely saw Bahamut break free from his prison, and the attempt to imprison him again, and then saw something happen on the field, but had no idea what happened - even if they could see Louisoix do something just before-hand. With how many people were time-skipped, there would be no way for even battlefield observers to keep track of who disappeared due to being burned alive and who just vanished, or who ran away and laid low, or what not. Distant observers would have even a harder time, and those who weren't there at all wouldn't have any way of clearly knowing what happened. So we end up with people probably knowing who all went to the battle, but not knowing who all died in the Primal's fires, or who all were affected by some sort of magic no one understood (time magic seems sort of like a higher level of magic than most people deal with) and even what that magic did, or where everyone went after the battle. Those who were battlefield observers or nearby observers would have seen some people enveloped in intense light, obscuring who they were; while they didn't know what that light did to them, it created a strong imagery of heroes who did something to fight against the Calamity. Hence the whole "Warriors of Light" whom people really can't recall as anything but silhouettes; eventually, the stories would propagate enough that even people who weren't there would have a very strong idea of that imagery. As time passes, the memory suppression effects of PTSD can get worse. For those who were not time-skipped, it's been five years at minimum since they've seen any of the Legacy characters who got time skipped. Those like the Grand Company leaders, super well known individuals from the main story, etc. are more likely to be remembered faster than those who were not as well known. If there's not enough contact with the lesser known time-skippers or time-skippers an NPC hadn't seen for sometime before the Calamity, their likely to not be able to connect the dots before the person leaves. These people who were left behind also had to deal with the whole rebuilding of life for the past five years, and had to focus on other things aside from their lost loved ones and lost protectors. That's going to play a part in how well people remember what happened; a lot may have accepted that something horrible happened, and rather than dwell on it, they focused on rebuilding and stabilization. There's also the fact that it may be hard for someone who didn't get time skipped to believe that a time skipper is actually who they believe they are; for example, I had a friend that moved away immediately after high school, I was told she had died, and years later when she returned to the area, I initially couldn't believe it was actually her. Sure, in that case, the person aged but once someone believes that another person is dead or not coming back...it's hard to deal with it when they do. Overall, that's the impressions I got about the situation. Rationally, it makes more sense than just "everyone has mass amnesia", and provides for varying degrees of amnesia and acceptance of the time skippers.

Given that I'm still undecided about who is going to be my main (it's a toss up between Claire [old main], Kyma, and Dwynd at the moment), I'm just going to post in alphabetical order. Anezka Cionaoith Claire Brea Dwynd Janan Eva Llewellyn Kyma Thavma R'ana Surya Zylala "Nyx" Zyla She's supposed to have a pair of spectacles, but I modified her look a bit, which made a new character. Ah well. These are all from their respective wiki pages. I have a huge gallery on Facebook of my characters, but haven't gotten around to updating anywhere else really. Also, my avatars all rotate when pages refresh, so there's about 100 or so additional images in that gallery (though I have a second, identical smaller sized image gallery for this site).

I'm sad I missed this, but there was a GW2 RP event for the guild I'm in there that was scheduled before this was. =( I might end up missing next week's too if it's on Saturday, because we're going to see fireworks with the family that night. =(

Does this contest absolutely have to be pairings with the opposite gender? Even if our characters aren't inclined to their opposite gender, or don't share the gender expression of their models (or are non-binary about gender)? Aside from this one point, this event sounds awesome. So few large events utilize group chat, which helps cut down on the massive scrolling that intimidates a lot of people who don't often RP in large groups. Even I get headaches trying to keep track of chat scrolling after about 30 people, and I suspect there will be far more than that at this event. Also, the event linkshell idea is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. It eliminates so many problems I've seen at mass events for the coordinators and MCs. I really hope most large scale events utilize something like this.

I am dividing my time between Balmung and Gilgamesh for Phase 3. However, aside from coordinated RP events, for the more part I'm doing my best to break things, and catch any weird bugs (like the fact that on the Fifth Astral Moon's (9th Moon) calendar, the numbers are not as they appear - 7 doubles over to 8, and throws the whole system off!) on the text based side of things; when I worked for SEGA, my primary Q&A focus was translation text, so it's a habit that hasn't died. I'm also still figuring out character things; none of my characters were high enough level to be at the Battle, and gathering information on what has been going on since takes time.

Hai Aeonic. Fancy meeting you here. =P *hugs* I think one thing that is going to sort of change the whole "1.0 originals helping newbies" thing is the level syncing. The problem I've seen with a lot of games - beyond the natural feeling of cliques and such - is that for non-tavern RP...a higher level character grouping with a lower level one is just not beneficial to the lowbie and can make it really boring for them. With the level syncing, I think there will be a lot more help to be given without trivializing content or robbing EXP; even if it's not a conscious thought, the gaps between levels in games that don't sync cause huge problems. Removing the gap really makes grouping between old characters and new easier. For example, my guild in Neverwinter has been having a lot of issues helping one another with certain things (skirmishes and queued dungeons) because of level differences. Even just three levels makes it so I can't go into a skirmish with my fiance, leaving him to have to completely PUG the situation, which neither of us enjoy. With dungeons, we can outright enter them from the actual physical entrance, but if we don't have 5 people, even with higher level help the end bosses can't be done. There's several mid-level people in the guild I would love to help...but I eat up so much of their EXP and can't even enter their dungeon/skirmish half the time. Level gaps suck, and add to that whole feeling like you can't help or can't get help, and as I said before, even if it's not completely conscious, it's likely your brain factors that in. Removing that problem moves us one step more towards being sure people get the help they need. Also, as far as Linkshells go, I believe there is an OOC linkshell any RPer can join, if I'm remembering correctly. That will go a long way in this situation.

I love the style of the concept art. *sighs*

If it's true that Legacy characters cannot transfer to non-Legacy servers...that may end badly for us all if they declare an RP server and it's non-Legacy. While some of us who haven't gotten far (I only got to 20 on three jobs across two characters, for example) might not be hit so badly by re-rolling, others take a huge hit. I'm really hoping they consider this if they decide to make an RP server AND make it non-Legacy.

Updated character profile links from the new wiki formats. Also updated images on the wiki pages. I'm undecided on who I want to be my main character this time around. Claire was interesting, however some of the new jobs really pique my interest, as does the whole male Miqo'te thing.

GW2 has a weird RP scene, to me at least. There's one type of RP that's super public and popular (human nobility RP - it's all over DR on Tarnished Coast), and then everything else is very guild-centric. At least that's how it seems from my perspective.

I might get a CE if I can afford one, and if our income situation stabilizes a bit more. Unfortunately, about the only video game retailer close to us is...Wal-Mart. I'm not sure which is more inept!

Rift used to have a very strong RP community, and even had a site kind of like the RCP to gather the RPs out of game, however that all died off as more and more quality games went free to play and other games released; I know a huge chunk of people who went over to SW:TOR only to be disappointed later, and by the time we all went back, it just wasn't the same and there were not as many RPers. With the little spare time I have, I've primarily been playing Neverwinter. There's an RP community site for the game, but a lot of the RP seems to be tavern/town based or Foundry based right now. People are moving into the overland taverns (like I ran into some RPers in the Old Dirty Dwarf in Helm's Hold), but I've not seen much overland RP yet. GW2 still has a fairly active RP community, to a degree; it's pretty human-centric, or guild-centric. I still log into GW2 for RP events with my guild there, although I'm burned out on the game itself. There's really no end game progression, and while there have been content updates, the content has been really easy to get through so far. Otherwise, I'm sort of just looking ahead to FFXIV: ARR, ESO, and maybe WildStar.

Greetings! I've been fairly silent around here lately, but that's largely due to a new project I've been working on and would like to share with the community. At the beginning of April, I launched a RP focused website. The site is not focused on any one game, or even any one gaming medium. We're going to cover traditional table top, live action role play, MMO based role play, and forum/play by post based RP. Some articles do focus on a specific game or medium, while others convey things that apply to all mediums. The Realm of Role Play is moving into its third month here shortly, and we decided last week to move off of WordPress.com, although we still use the Word Press platform for the site itself. We have regularly scheduled content, and will be having guest content as well; I already have a couple of people volunteering to write a few articles over their summer breaks, for example. I would love to have someone writing a FFXIV: ARR focused article, if anyone would enjoy doing such! Our current line up of regular articles includes: Pathfinding by Sumevala Wednesday Night D&D Recap by Ixy Morningstar The Guilded Word by Badger De Worde M7 Records by Madchen Verrukt The Prince's Primer by Ixy Morningstar The Wandering RPer by Shadowed Sin Character Development: Tips & Tricks by Ixy Morningstar The Onyx Wolf by Volkmar Library of Neverwinter by Ixy Morningstar (and various others, as time goes by) Aside from the articles, the site does link to several role play sites for the various games we talk about in our articles. Currently, the following sites are linked, and I'm totally open to more suggestions; however, I'm working out some sort of system for linking to guild specific sites, so there are no guild sites here yet. Altear - Shadowed Sin's historical fantasy forum based RPG Ash’s Guide to RPG Personality & Background - A wonderful guide to character creation that was just featured in the first Character Development: Tips & Tricks Guild Wars 2 Role Players - The largest GW2 RP community Hydaelyn Role-Play Coalition - The largest FFXIV RP community, this site! The Krytan Herald - An IC newspaper for GW2 The NeXus - An IC newspaper for WildStar The Scowling Cassian - A WildStar role play blog The Tamriel Witness - An IC newspaper for ESO WildStar Role Play - A WildStar RP fan site Anyway, there's two months' worth of articles on the site already. If you don't want to register an account, you can use Facebook, Twitter, G+, or Tumblr to find out when an article has been posted. I had to make companion pages for the Realm for anyone who didn't want to make an account but still wanted to be kept up to date.

Claire, who is still my main character as of yet, has a living Grandmother she's unaware of. I debated on having her have siblings alive, well, and unknown, but changed my mind.

I won't be around much for the next week or so - I had extensive oral surgery on Friday, and recovery is going very slow, and very not fun. The surgeon projected that it's going to take twice as long as the average patient for me to heal, plus my body is having a hard time clearing out the last of the anaesthetics. X.x On the upside, I got computer upgrades done earlier in the week, and the majority of my 3D rendering software has been reinstalled! I need to find decent ear meshes for Miqo'te, though.

I'm now literally going to picture Ship like this at all times. The fact that he's trying so hard just makes it better. I am too...and I'm going to always wonder if he's secretly Scottish~.

...What a cruel world Eorzea is Is now a bad time to mention that the in game models are likely all Ken dolls anyway as well? >.>

It doesnt??? I bought my brother SWTOR through there...or maybe it was the actual website Apparently it doesn't have a gifting option anymore. I know that SW:TOR was available via website and 3rd party vendors. Apparently all digital sales for SimCity are Origin only though. He looked everywhere for a gifting option. =/

I don't need a porn star name meme...my actual name is... Ixy Morningstar

I'm in the same boat. Liked the beta, love the concepts for the online play. A friend of mine offered to gift it to me, then we found out that unlike Steam, Origin does not have a gifting feature. It really pissed him off, because I generally don't agree to such things, and the first time I do...he's thwarted.

I'll consider making one for my characters once I figure out the transitionary period between 1.0 and 2.0 for them all. Most of my questions I have to help with that are still likely covered by the NDA, so its a bit of a waiting period. I used to do journals religiously back in my EQ2 days; one of my journals had thousands of views before I stopped playing. They were done on a forum specifically for them, on a RP community site simular to this one, in some ways. There was also a site dedicated to nothing but journals that I cross-posted them all too. Post-EQ2, I really fell out of the habit; between the massive amounts of time it took to run an RP city in SWG, and the shifting of games about every six or so months after SWG died...when we did seem to finally settle down for a game, I ended up an officer and most of my time got sucked away doing interviews and paperwork. I finally started a character journal for GW2, however there's been such a decline of interest between myself and the guild I'm in over there...it's not really been updated much. There was just a really poignant RP that occurred, randomly, and I wrote out some journal for it. I'm not sure if I'd use Tumblr for character journals, as I've gotten kind of attached to Blogger since it's release and subsequent upgrades. Most of my prior character journals for various games were moved to Blogger sites, since you can create multiple sites under one login; my stories from other games were moved to Blogger as well. The nice thing about Blogger, Tumblr, and Word Press is that they're likely not going away any time soon, so data loss chances are minimal. As far as I'm aware, all three services have great back up schedules, are doing well revenue wise...so your blogs may as well be kinda eternal.

Another updated. Added my male Miqo'te to the list of characters, and started a wiki page for him. Sadly, I have nothing to use as an icon for him till at earliest open beta. Still debating on a surname for him. I'm also not sure if he's going to stay Keeper or be a Seeker, and likely won't solidify that till after I can get at the character creator and see which will be able to give him the colouration I want. Kali Nyx is being remade. She started out life as a Lalafell, but her name doesn't really work well for that race. I'm considering making her into a Roegadyn, depending upon their naming conventions, which I hope are out sooner rather than later. Eva Llewellyn will either be having her surname changed entirely, or I'll be adding a reason for it to not exactly match the other B'Eam-aeyans, who are a tribe of Midlanders that fled Ala Mhigo; based on what I can remember of Ala Mhigo and the name itself, the surname isn't exactly fitting. My Lalafell will be re-made with the possible name Zylala Zyla. I'm still kind of trying to figure out a name I like using their naming conventions, as the general conventions kinda make me grit my teeth. She's supposed to be a curmudgeon, of sorts, so having a cutesy name is just...not entirely fitting.