Darien Cadell

In the game, yeah, nothing should be as scary as it is. What's the worst that can happen? Jump in! But outside reality can echo hard. If you make a decision that costs a life, especially a life that matters to you a lot, you can end up raw and sensitive in ways you never ever wanted to be for pretty much the rest of your life. It's not always as simple as allowing yourself to fail. Sometimes it takes years of effort just to see the light for the shadows. And sometimes those shadows tell you that even doing little things, like playing a game, might have terrible consequences. We shouldn't believe them. Little things can bring a lot of light with very little actual risk. But on bad days, it's so much easier said than done.

When they were initially saying how personal housing would be separate from FC housing, I was racking my brain to figure out how gardening and chocobos would work without... being the same. I thought they were going to come up with something fascinating. I initially thought some of those little areas at the edges of the housing area maps were going to lead to essentially apartment buildings of sorts. But in the end, none of these things happened. Making the inn rooms customizable sounds like it should be reasonable. They're already there after all. Customization could be quest locked, rent an apartment instead of a room? I've been wondering if they'll ever do an overhaul. There are certainly enough complaints to warrant a new, better system, but the gil people have put into what already exists seems likely to make any massive sweeping fixes, no matter how desired, a definite recipe for disaster.

You know what's missing from this (in addition to bookslapping) is staff weapons, like bo, shillelagh, whatever. FFXIV doesn't use them that way, so... there's good reason for it to be missing. But the one and only time I went to the Grindstone, I went as lowly CNJ, opened a couple staff fighting youtube videos, and beat a man with my stick to the best of my abilities.

Yeah, my character snapped already, too. She's been wandering around in an effectively snapped state for a little more than a year? It's mostly just made her vicious and avoidant, but she's moving to somewhere healthier, I hope. The breaking point involved family, deception, and death, and it was all very, very personal, almost like it was designed to make her snap. I think what was left of her family was hoping they'd break her spirit so she could be controlled. Instead, she just went Tasmanian Devil berserk and left a lot of bodies in her wake. So these days it takes theoretically very little to make her "snap", but she's consciously making the effort to stay in control, so there'd have to be some sort of extenuating circumstances to make her throw that away. Maybe a direct, personal threat on her life in addition to forcing her into things she hates.

She's aspired to be exactly the opposite, to hurt as many people as she can and legitimately get away with it. These days, she's aspiring to be something a lot more normal, but the bright light makes her blink a lot. So hero? Nope, not on her to-do list. She'll be moving from harmful to helpful, but if hero's anywhere in the cards, it's a far flung future, I'd think.

How much stress I feel in the dungeon queue is directly related to how stressed I am outside the game. It's almost... odd how intensely that works for me. If I'm feeling good otherwise, I don't even bat an eyelash. But if I'm not? I can end up jumping in and out of the queue freaking out about whether or not I really want to do it. And it doesn't even matter which role I'm doing. Well, tanking's worse these days, but I started as tank main, and there was a time where even that didn't make me flinch. I rarely say a word in groups, unless pushed to do so, whether they're bad or good. If they're bad, I just won't give any commendations. That's as far as my criticism goes. On this side of the keyboard, I'll cuss up a storm, but otherwise, it's not worth getting into it, and my silence never seems to hurt anything. Before there were random queues, I'd heal&tank for 3 DPS in the junior dungeons, just because people were desperate to get into them any possible way. As a healer, I feel like I can push all but the very worst groups through all but the very worst messes, so that helps ease anxiety. Doing the other roles, I have to rely on other people more, so it's less gentle feeling getting into the queue.

We've got a thread necromancer on the forums lately. At least this isn't from 2010, but it is from last summer. For me, it's just overused. If I only saw it every once in a while, I probably wouldn't be fazed, but I see IC Fantasia use constantly, and for me, it's tired. For people who are enjoying the possibilities it opens up, though, I say the more power to them.

Qhora doesn't really judge people in terms of attractiveness, and hasn't since she was much younger, but she has her opinions nonetheless. Physically: - Women/femininity in general. She has an almost visceral aversion to all things physically girly. Culturally girly is different. She doesn't mind flowers, or ribbons, or dresses, but if a skirt is so short as to call attention to girlbits, she starts to feel ill. Mentally: - Dependence. People who rely on other people to the point that they've crippled their own identities and personalities. Anyone with an inferiority complex. - Arrogance. Conversely, people with superiority complexes are just as unpleasant, but qualified. Narcissism is fine, but characters who believe a certain group or characteristic of people is inherently better are to be avoided like the plague (yes, hypocrisy).

I clicked Ninja, but I guess I should've picked the Base DoW option, because she's not a Ninja. She's a rogue at best, with arcanist/small "s" scholar Nymian tendencies.

Qhora has a lot of significant regrets regarding her family and the fact that now she's the only one left alive, but very few regarding her own actions. There might be minor things she would have done differently, especially if she could go back with all of the hindsight, and she desperately wishes things had not turned out the way they had, but she does feel as if she did the best she could in the situations as they were presented. They were just presented by horrible people and horrible things.

NPCs will call you either. I did a generator-named Roegadyn in one of the betas called Crazy Bee, and whether it was "Greetings, Lady Bee" or "How's it going, Crazy?" I did a lot of laughing, and I didn't get far out of the Gridania starter MSQ, because that's all there was available at the time. I didn't notice it at all with my Hyur or my Keeper because of how conventional their names are, but with the Hellsguard, hilarity consistently ensued.

I went looking, because I know so little. Settled on Black Stripe, the "hot" version with dark rum, molasses, cinnamon.

Qhora stepped forward from the shadows, placing a packet of papers on the table among the cards and coins. "Thal's balls, woman! How long have you been there?" The wild-haired Lalafell player shrieked, grasping at his chest with one fist. "You could kill a man sneaking up on him like that!" Qhora grinned, wide and unpleasant. "Yes sir." "Good work, girl," the red-skinned Roegadyn man across the table said, reaching for the package then flipping through the pages. "Is she always this reliable, Giyu?" The woman who had met Qhora in the alley several weeks ago nodded without looking up from her cards. "Mmhm." "So what do we call you, shadow?" the Roegadyn asked. "Q is fine," answered Qhora. "Q? That's a little odd. Is it a Miqo'te thing? Some sort of tribe?" he continued, waving a hand. "No, sir. I don't have a tribe. It's just a name." "Just a name?" He put his cards down on the table. "All right, Q. We've seen you can get your hands on things you shouldn't be able to. Can you tell us, are you willing to get those same hands dirty?" "Yes, sir." "Just how far are you willing to go?" "You want me to travel, sir?" The Roegadyn laughed heartily. "No, girl. Are you willing to hurt people?" "Oh. Yes, sir." "Are you willing to, say, hurt innocent people? Say teach someone a lesson by hurting his family?" "Yes, sir." "What aren't you willing to do?" "I don't work with others. I don't play nice. I don't dress up. I don't drink tea. I--" "Right, girl. Stick to the solo ventures. Why haven't you used her for muscle yet, Giyu?" "Look at her," the Lalafell woman waved a hand at Qhora. "Aside from the eye paint, she's not exactly intimidating." "I don't take credit," Qhora added. "Better stick to disappearings with her," Giyu explained, frowning at her cards a while, then throwing one down. "Maybe some fixing. But she simply won't do for the traditional stuff. She can't do your job, Falcon. You're safe there." The Roegadyn laughed again. "The delicate jobs, huh? I think we have more work for you, Q." The wild-haired little man squeaked, "This is all well and good for you folks, but can we please get back to the game?" Falcon chuckled. "Why? You're losing." "Don't remind me," wild-hair wailed. The Hyur in the seat closest to the door never said a word, but pulled his hat down closer over his eyes as Qhora stepped back into the shadows.

Character Fear? Identity loss, qualified. She's terrified of turning into her mother, or into the crowd of people that she has nothing but contempt for. How do they cope? A combination of seething rage and avoidance. She doesn't "run", per se. She just generally refuses to spend time with certain kinds of people or to spend too much time thinking about them. If she does find herself spending time with people she hates for some reason, she'll either maintain chilly silence or lash out verbally. How do people respond to their fear? Most people don't know, certainly not the reasoning behind her feelings. They just think she needs an attitude adjustment. Do you think one day they could be cured of their fear? Maybe. It'd take quite a lot. But if she can meet enough people who don't make her rage, or can work through her issues with her past, maybe she can gain some confidence that she isn't going to change into something she doesn't want without her permission.

A bunch of groups that are not on Balmung/Gilgamesh are listed here: http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=15&filtertf_srvr=Other If the character creation woes have sent you searching for another server, I think already knowing/having contacted a group wherever you land might help.

Seems like some people are missing this in through their rose-colored goggles regarding the amazingness of our community. I'm so so so sorry you had experiences like these. Blackmail? That's beyond the pale. I'm an ally myself, but I've had so so many LGBT IC encounters that I'd been beginning to think that the LGBT characters (I know very little of players) actually significantly outnumbered the cis. That's not problematic, but it shows how important it is to step back and realize that any given individual's experience is far from reflective of everybody else's. And dropping another tag for Tenrilaux's new LS.

It's going to be extra extra rough for a few weeks, maybe even longer, as people on the server are going to be jumping at any off-peak open hours to create new characters and other new players are server transferring, making whatever open times there are that much tinier. I definitely sympathize. I'm not sure how productive a third possible server conversation would be, but it's not a terrible idea on a small scale. I'd say if this post reaches anyone else in your situation, you should try and see if you can gather together somewhere particular for at least the near future. Something like "If you see this and are having a lot of trouble getting on Balmung, join our party here on !" But as Foxberry says, most Balmung roleplayers are not actually on the RPC, so the concept isn't likely to benefit from a community-wide designation, even if anyone tried to "make it so".

They're not, mostly. I think a lot of people are in some kind of boat like that, either the conventions didn't exist when they thought up the name or they didn't initially intend to roleplay. It's a fun reason to come up with an interesting excuse why your name doesn't fit the conventions or to ask people to call you something that isn't what shows up over your head. Your name's reeeally familiar. *suspicious eyes*

We just haaaaad to go out for dinner. I don't usually log in during prime time. This is hellish, especially since the guy sitting across from me got in on the first try, and I'm going on my first hour.

See, I think of it more like the only miqo'te I'm meeting are the ones that left the tribal life because the tribal life doesn't appeal to the same demographics that appeal to adventuring. Miqo'te who love their tribal life stick with their tribes, don't bother with cities, don't bother with adventuring type things. As an adventurer, why would I meet them? Unless it was a U-tribe type circumstance where the adventure I'm on takes me to them. By playing not-an-adventurer, the complaint is more valid, but ignores the player-world norms. Maybe 99% of miqo'te are perfectly happy with tribal existence, but the 99% of the people we interact with are all within that 1% who aren't. It seems perfectly legitimate to me, and I don't question finding few tribal-leaning miqo'te. Tribal backgrounds that have shifted to a city/adventuring life instead make more sense to me than a character still deeply entrenched in their tribal culture. But that does make the tribal-leaning miqo'te that do wander into these sorts of crowds all that much more interesting. When a roleplaying community is deciding what's showing, rather than the world builders, the show-don't-tell ideal has become awkward. The world builders have built a world that actually has very few male miqo'te NPCs. The ones that do exist stand out. But when we interact with other player characters, we're not interacting with the general populace. We're interacting with a very (theoretically) small segment of the whole world's population, a segment with goals and values that are (and I argue should be) highly skewed from what might be considered the world builders' norms.

Dataq is where she'd be happiest, I think. Travel so much, you sleep on horseback. She might join Qestir after the fact. After what she's been through, it'd seem wonderfully simplistic to blame it on the words and try straight up avoiding them.

I'm curious to know in what form you'd like this representation to take, because I'm going to assume you're not necessarily advocating for arbitrary player character deaths. For me, I just like to see it in backgrounds affected by loss. In some other games/worlds, the orphan/lost family trope is so overdone it hurts. Here, I'd expect the "I still have all my family members living" ideal to be painfully rare. As far as I'm concerned, though, I don't really need to see loss roleplayed more. It seems to be very well balanced. The player characters who still have their families seem to know they're lucky and play up their luckiness. The player characters who've lost people close to them are numerous, and that's exactly as it should be. For most things that have been stated by Lore Devs to be common yet aren't, such as illiteracy and not-Miqos, I figure the reason we don't see it in the adventuring community is because of situational appeal. Adventurers find it appealing to be literate. Miqo'te find it appealing to be adventurers. I don't really see any need to change those things in the general RP community. For the RPers who aren't going the adventure-ish route, the more power to them! But I don't see any need to change the way things are done currently. I say we could use more of anything that people find inspiring for their RP, whether that's coming up with where they get the money for their drunken shenanigans, the state of their character's religious beliefs and how to portray traditions, or whether or not they can get away with slitting the purse of that big guy at the bar. That's all we need more of.

Ooh, I know, I know! For stackable quest turn-ins. The number of times I quicksynthed elemental potions for Ixali only to get one of the batch HQed and nobody buys those useless things and my perfectly gathered amounts are all thrown out of whack. I eventually gave up quicksynthing and just individual synthed each. And would still get HQ with a sldfkjsdlfkj 1% chance! So for some, this is an endearing little quality of life change.

[video=youtube]