Darien Cadell

I waaaas going to dive headlong into the MSQ. Now I'm considering I might start with fishing. Just take it easy.

At the lv40 stage, nobody should be taking massive amounts of damage like that unless they're eating AoEs. Level 40 is about when the dungeons stop being trivial for the equal geared and start being a bit painful. In this case, especially if the tank is also levelling/inexperienced, they can take quite a lot of fatter hits than expected. If DPS are in the lucky crit might kill them zone, but the tank is also suffering, I'd let the DPS eat it in favor of keeping the tank alive, apply the Medica when you feel like it's safe for both the casting time and the mp. If mp usage is a concern, do make sure to keep Shroud of Saints cooling, and whatever variant of X-Ethers you've stocked up will help.

You could make a case for the -whatever you want to Fantasia into- doing something magicky and forbidden at the exact time Memenu's body finally breaks down, but that seems obvious. I like Verad's suggestions.

I considered begging a grandparent to take the child for an entire week so I could faceplant into a video game, but something about that just seemed irresponsible.

To be fair, from my perspective, once is a coincidence, twice is creepy, and I could easily see how these kind of encounters could happen a handful of times to a single player, thus convincing them to stay away. I'd only need something like Rahal described to happen to me more than once for me to think "maybe I shouldn't go there anymore," but in the same line, I wouldn't paint everyone who does go there with the scum and villainy brush. I've spent a little bit of time sidelining in the Quicksand and never had a questionable experience. I've witnessed the occasional questionable thing, but the actual "scum and villainy" encounters I've personally had in this game have taken place at the marketboard and at the aetheryte, hubs of a not at all IC sort, and I don't feel the need to avoid them, but if those encounters had been Quicksand-based, even though they were infrequent, I'd still be inclined to avoid the place.

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And that's my problem with the original thread. The person's setting themselves up as a victim of... completely normal (even relatively polite in the grander scheme of how responses can go) behavior. And referring to it as "such selflessness" as if she's doing everyone else a favor by engaging in roleplay? If she's not doing it for her own enjoyment, why is she doing it at all? Does she expect all other players and characters to give her the royal treatment just because it's "the central hub of a roleplay server"? Nothing she did was wrong, per se, but the ultimate attitude she has about all of the situation is unforgiving and unfriendly. If she wasn't trying so hard to be "selfless" she might have focused instead on the interactions she did enjoy, perhaps even been in awe of the fact that no one spammed dragoon spins on her head in a location that is only an RP hub by mutual consent rather than rule enforcement. Maybe she wouldn't have focused on the little things like being called crazy IC, which I have done and had done to me a LOT, and never questioned it as a perfectly viable and even appropriate response. I feel like this needs a Fry meme with something like "not sure if actually feeling entitled or being facetiously critical of other people's senses of entitlement."

Something about the original thread seems really off. It's difficult for me to tell if the person's just that new to the concept or troll-ish. When you pretend to be a character to "add fantasy to your game," you don't usually accuse others of rudeness for what amounts to not taking your added fantasy on a silver platter and bowing profusely? I don't know. The person's behavior and retelling of it just seemed odd. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being odd, and a person doing all the things they did with a cheerful demeanor would be absolutely welcomed, but there is something wrong with being consistently offended by little things around you when you've put yourself into a situation that behooves others to respond as they wish, not as you wish. If someone had been spamming dragoon spin on her head or telling her she was stupid or to go away OOC, she'd have a legitimate complaint.

Yep, backfiring and interesting burn patterns were part of the story.

Done the ink-on-skin flavor as the painter, not the wearer. And it was impermanent, specially prepared for special occasions, used once, then gone, and not quite like just using skin as a book page, a little different, almost like making a magic item/potion with an effect, but instead of something held in the hand or consumed by mouth, it's a string of magic ink laying over the skin, activated by touch and spell cast. At least that's how I saw it. I won't go into too much detail, since it really wasn't my story, per se, but it's certainly a fun concept to play with.

Apparently unimpressed by the drowning situation.

Step 1: Type as many descriptors as you can think of for desired situation into Google. Step 1.a): Add "anime" if so desired. Step 2: Click "Images". Step 2.a): Click "Search Tools" -> "Type" -> "Animated" Step 3: Profit?

I actually had to look up if they spelled "Pharaoh" wrong on purpose. They did not, but it's stuck like that anyway. And then his name was "misspelled"... to the correct spelling of the actual word... on his Triple Crown blanket. I know horses can't read, but I'd find that constantly distracting if I were the owner. Apparently they've reserved both spellings so no other horses get the name in the future. Amazing achievement, little horse named by the internet generation!

I've had to reconstruct ages-old FFXI accounts a couple of times, and it's always been smooth and easy once I got in contact with a real person via chat. Not sure how the FFXIV service compares, but I'd hope it's similar.

That's not a gif. This is a gif. M'sato:

I'm doing 'all the classes to 15' on an alt. It's kinda fun. Rogue is pretty crazy fragile to start, but it gets some stability to it later on. I do all my fate/treasure hunting/dailies/any solo-y stuff on my main with NIN and my healing chocobo (which you can't really get 'til 30 on something). But if you're only taking it to 15, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The consequences for death aren't that huge and as you get more comfortable with the class, you'll probably have an easier time with leves and such. If you are going to NIN and find you're having a lot of trouble, you could try changing your home point around to whatever's closer to where you're working or lowering the level on the leves you try. If you have the patience for DPS queues, you shouldn't have to worry about low health at all in dungeons/hests and it's sweet exp in there. In my experience getting to NIN, you're not crazy, ROG is dang squishy when doing things alone. (PUG and LNC can have similar problems without the sturdiness of tankery or backup heals.) I had a few deaths, which isn't something I really experienced with other classes. PUG to 4 will get you Featherfoot, which is a short duration Evasion buff. Getting it to 8 should get you Second Wind, which is a convenient little heal (long cooldown) to have on your growing ROG. And LNC to 6 will get you Keen Flurry, which is a short duration Parry buff. Cure is always available from CNJ 2, but yeah, your mp will be so low and the strength of the cure will be so sad, it's a hard sell.

I believe there was some discussion of allowing people into dungeons regardless of full party/level, etc., like walking into them, instead of using the dungeon finder. It could happen! Although, I think the concept was more along the lines of not level capping higher level people, which would mean still a minimum level to walk in the door. Still, it'll be interesting to see if they come up with something that'd allow a low level tour. I've shied away from the fairies myself, because I just didn't feel comfortable enough with how the quest story played out. That and their similarity (relation?) to elementals made me wary. I just feel like the whole concept of elementals is way out of my wavelength. When I have used them, I've considered them more as arcanist constructs than independent creatures, like little mathematical healing turrets, which is pretty much flat wrong when taking into account what lore there is for the big S Scholar class. I don't see any issues with what you've proposed. I'd certainly go along with it. It'll be interesting to see what details others provide.

Getting to level again. I've missed it so hard, I've been playing both an alt and FFXI, just to scratch that 'ding, you get a level!' itch. I'm not entirely sure on the why, but having all those capped things suddenly uncapped, plus a little dose of new things I've never seen before to level, it all just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. New fish! I spread it out pretty well, but now that I've finally got all the fish, sometimes I get sad looking at the complete lack of blanks to hunt for in the fish log. Fishing was my first 50. Can't wait for new fishing places and challenges.

I enjoyed the beta, but not enough to quit what I was already playing at the time, which I think was GW2? So yeah. I certainly never tried it on a console, but if it worked well enough to entertain on PC and was just a hot mess on console, that's got to be disappointing.

Ish? I've never had a character kidnapped for more than a day, always just long enough to RP out some horrible thing happening to them while they were vulnerable then waking up in a tub of ice (Can we say black market organ trading? I think it got eaten in the end) or with blood all over their hands. I've been on the sidelines of other characters' stories when they've been kidnapped for weeks and it was just soul-grindingly painful, especially when they did the hardcore thing of not playing OOC while they were IC out of commission. After watching others go through it and feeling exceptionally awkward about not being able to approach them or even communicate with them IC, I think I'd pass on any opportunities to do something like that. Unless it was highly convenient, like I had to be away from the computer RL for that time anyway, or something.

I'm not going to judge people who are comfortable with their kids playing MMOs. By 9, he's able to discuss most issues that come up, but I think the usual lower age limit for these things is 13? Even then, unsupervised internet communications can be a scary thing. In any case, if I were in your situation, I'd just let the character sit there and collect dust, unless there was some compelling reason to use it that isn't immediately evident. Even if the character's on a separate account, better to just let it lapse and leave it there indefinitely. With a level 5, you'd be better off rerolling something new to play (or even saving the appearance data and giving it the same name) than bothering to transfer it.

True enough. Negativity isn't the same as weakness. Qhora's bad at getting along socially. She's bad at self-soothing or maintaining calm. She's bad at empathy, at understanding why other people do things or why she should appreciate or care that they do things. She's bad at singing and art. She's angry and emotional, and while she's decent at general avoidance to dwell/indulge elsewhere out of the public eye, she can easily become part of a gang or instigate and encourage bullying of others if she's not alone in her rage in any given moment.

I get the impression the WoL loses all his powers when he loses his weapon. Like everything he's remotely capable of is stuffed into that book. Or axe. Or lance. Or whatever. Without it, he's some kind of mushroom. I can't imagine Qhora would break the plot too much. She likes to play along on the surface and meddle in the background. I could come up with ways for her to do so, and maybe I should in light of the creative exercise, but she's more likely to find a way to actually be the things she's accused of, whether they go wrong or right. Actually, all that stuff you're desperate to show everyone wasn't me? That was me!

Echoing this, except the Lard Almighty thing, which I am still laughing at. I've played some form of the emokid girlrogue thing from... oh, way back when, probably Neverwinter Nights was my first go at it, but they've never been the same person, never had the same name, nor even been similar enough to really invoke variations on a theme. FFXI was my first MMO, and I played a Tarutaru Ninja girl, so there are probably echoes even there, but every time a new game has come up, I've been too excited about trying something new to really draw someone out of the past and reconstruct them. My favorite characters have tended to be the ones who are completely out of my comfort zone that make me work at making them special in new ways.