Darien Cadell

I had planned to be miqo from the beta. I actually regret not going miqo at launch because they were overpopular (even our FC was/is like 90% miqo unintentionally), and wish I had gone with what I wanted from the start. I had the same thing with blood elf in WoW. It was just going to be a throwaway character because oh, everybody's doing that, but it turned out to be the greatest, most memorable, most well-rounded character I ever had and I regret nothing about him. If I was in love with Au Ra, I'd go for it whole hog. Who cares if they're overpopular as long as you love your character. As it is, I'm keeping this miqo. She had to fight my prejudices to get here, so she's going to stick around for at least a while longer.

I... might actually do something like this if the timing's right. Have some ideas for what I could sell even. Thumbs up from me.

Currently, I'm all about the undermining. Qhora's misogyny is very strong and applies even to herself. She even applies it to Hydaelyn when she's in the depths of... despair, her cups, whatever. She's become absolutely certain that women are toxic and bad for the universe. Obviously, this is far from fact. She has a few stabilizing influences that prevent her from going completely off the rails because of this belief, which has grown over the course of a lifetime but only recently become solid and strong. But ultimately, I want to see whether or not it's a belief that can change, if it will change, if she can change it herself based on her own merits, or if it will require outside help, or if it'll end up destroying her. There's a touch of the Catch-22 in it, in that if she does find her own value, which isn't a goal she even realizes she has, but is a part of her waking up each day, she'll have to lose her misogyny. I like the friction, but I often apply it to the character's self-worth, rather than directly to the characters or the world around them, though that's where change, where the undermining tends to be found in the end.

I've had a few people try to walk-up RP with me when my character's been in a public place, but I haven't actually had the time to start anything. It makes me sad, because although I respond in-character before dashing away, at some level it probably feels like a brush-off. Although, if they're trying me in a public enough place, they're probably trying lots of other people and getting brush-offs of all sorts. And then sometimes people introduce themselves with something like "Hey baby," and ohohoho that's such the wrong way to approach my character if you want the conversation to be more than a slap across the face. I think that time I laughed, said something mean, and left, because again, it was in a public place where I was just passing through and didn't have the time to really engage anyway. My real life right now means unless I've blocked out a timeframe, I'm decently likely to need to suddenly leave the keyboard, so I just don't start things anymore. Not that I did much before, but there was a time when I'd scope out a joint and see if there was anyone I recognized to watch for hooks. Now? I almost never have that ability. All this to say, I have no advice for you on how to initiate it. I'm pretty much never the instigator of walk-up, only the responder to receiving it from others. But I do hope the occasional brush-off won't turn anyone off of continuing to try. Sometimes it's just bad timing.

I think the answer to the question of hatred/wariness is generally no, it's not major, especially as I'd expect "adventurers" are a pretty common sight to most average townsfolk, and a Keeper adventurer probably wouldn't cause a second glance. Not to mention the number of average townsfolk Keepers who are average townsfolk. Now if you have an average townsfolk who has a good reason to be worried about poachers or who has a background steeped in hatred, then your Keeper might see it, so any given Keeper is probably aware of such reactions, even if they haven't caused a problem for them in particular. But I can't imagine walking into Gridania and getting mobbed with torches and pitchforks. To the grand majority of the populace, a Keeper would just be another member of said populace, unless they've been given reason to think otherwise of that particular individual. My Keeper is not at all traditional, but I'm okay with that. She's got a dash of the tradition-breaking father akin to (and simultaneously nothing like) the Postmoogle questline along with a pinch of poacher/bandit culture from her mother, mixed in with attempts to rejoin traditional culture after the Calamity, all of which combined to give her an actual hatred/wariness of traditional Keeper culture. Given all that, it comes up almost never. It's just the kind of thing that seethes in the background for her.

Minority, but not alone. I'm also one who always toggled chat bubbles off when they were an option. I'd rather skim endless pages for the name I'm looking for and possibly miss it than have bubbles all over the place. That being said, obviously people miss it not being an option, so maybe it's something that should be considered. I don't know what I'd do without timestamps, though. Probably lose my mind.

After reading this whole thing, it looks like the large concerns beyond minor clarifications are subjectivity and visibility of "wrongdoing". And I think those are perfectly sensible large concerns. Subjectivity as a problem is addressed by there not being a single mod whose opinions are law, but a group of them to discuss problems instead, and by appeal being possible. Might it still be a problem? Yep. But then it comes down to that issue of trust. Whether or not and how much offenses should be labeled and visible is always going to create problems. Whether it's too much visibility causing an us-against-them mentality, or too little causing accusations and conspiracy theories, I don't see how it can be perfected. Somewhere in the middle taking the least of all evils approach is probably best, and base it on what works for the community, but it's a difficult thing to experiment with. Trying out a system that doesn't work can do a lot of harm.

Your user page is not the same as a character page. Make a new one for the character and copy/paste the content.

I have a metric butt-ton of clothing, but I'm more of a hoarder than a wearer. I have an RP set. An. Just one. It changes periodically, but I label it RP and just change it. I have had at most three on the go at once, but I'm back down to just one. That being said, I feel relatively comfortable running around in practical or unglamored sets IC, so if I include those, I've got... a handful.

I always wondered how much of that was the U's fault, since we don't really meet them for a while. Or people just like deserts? Or were thinking lions and savannahs?

Wow! That's kind of amazing. I knew they'd be popular, but over 50% people playing Au Ra? Wow. I'm not even anything. That's impressive. That being said, it's 50% of people interested in replying to a survey based on whether or not they'll be playing Au Ra, so... Not too surprising or necessarily meaningful. I'm still impressed. I'll be glad to see people enjoying the new and shiny, but I think it'll settle out. They'll still be popular once it settles out, but we'll be used to it by then.

Short answer, yes. Longer answer, meh. It would add a lot of flexibility in certain particular areas like zone size, inventory size (maybe?), other things that are limited by PS3's limitations. As a FFXI player back in the old days, I definitely held a sort of resentment of the limitations PS2 support put on that game. I'm not sure the antagonism is entirely avoidable. That being said, I don't think anyone's seriously angry or annoyed by it. It's just a fact of life where online cross-platform games are concerned. Miffed comments are made, but anyone who finds it that stinky doesn't have to play.

Oh, I made the best wookiee ever in Star Wars Galaxies. They had a forehead slider, so it was this weird pinhead yeti thing. I never even played the game except a free weekend and she still makes me laugh years later. There's something to be said for weeding out the stupid with limitations. But I'd say there's also a lot to be said for silhouette variation, and it's plausible to test out slider extremities to cap the ridiculous level that way. But for me, I think, all those extras are a luxury, and the models we have are luxurious enough. Still, who wouldn't like more luxury? Plus, the danger of slider creators always make me think of this guy. Also still laughing years later.

As FFXI still has the PS2 essentially causing its demise (and age, but not much room to improve when nobody develops PS2 anything). How I would love to see a FFMMO with all the bells and whistles, 1.0's massive zones and zone line free cities, character creation with both style and options. It'd be so lovely. I don't see them ditching the consoles without seriously significant motivation, though.

I'm of the "not a huge fan" crowd and won't be rolling one. I played with the character creator and just wasn't into it. To me, they all look the same, and the screenshots thread just proves it in my mind. You see one female and one male, you've seen all of the entire race, excepting slight variations in color palette and hair length. I also find that's true of all not-Hyur, thank you clan differentiation. However, I find most of the racial designs appealing, so I'm happy to see them copy-pasted and recolored all over the world. It's delightful. Despite my shrugging over the new race, I am pleasantly surprised by how passionately the people who do love them absolutely adore them, and how many of those people there are. That makes me think SE definitely got something right in their core design of the race, no matter my own aesthetic tastes, and I'll be happy to see lots of them in-game being played by people who love playing them. I'm sure that quality will shine through as exuberance, at least until the newness wears off.

From what I've seen in previous posts, I'd echo Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop. That's about it. Maybe Full Metal Alchemist, but I got tired of it. I loved Fushigi Yuugi... when I was 16. I watch it now (am embarassed to own it) and wonder what I was smoking. (The answer is nothing, maybe Pocky, but still.) A lot of anime, including many in previous posts, I start watching and just never really get into or actively hate. (Somebody in this house loves it more than I do, so I get exposed to a lot of things I'd never watch otherwise.) Ones I've actually liked recently so that I sought them out are Madoka Magica (magical girl deconstruction, beautiful yet unpleasant, and I was in awe at the different approach), Kill La Kill (crazy high school superpowers sort-of deconstruction, hilarious, amazingly well translated (in the subs I saw it in)), and The Devil is a Part-Timer (very silly in-universe alternate real world universe, title self-describes, surprised me with unexpected charm). But if I have to pick just one, I'ma pick Noragami (fun modern fantasy playing around with Japanese myth). Because it is awesome, but new, so incomplete (only seen one season). I also really loved Hell Girl, which is older, probably for similar reasons, but Noragami is much more lighthearted.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Jerkass Ah, how I love them, hearts of gold or coal, any type will do. My nice guys never last.

Qhora's an equal opportunity hater. She'll probably find them distasteful and wish they'd all go away. It's plausible that the first few she'll meet will fit in that slim range of people she doesn't hate as much, and she'll actually wake up on a decent side of the bed where they're concerned. Plausible, but unlikely. She'll probably be like 'damn, mini-succubi everywhere, eating all the snacks, get off my lawn'.

I'm not much of a Konami kid, so I'm mostly on the sidelines, but I was a pretty huge DDR fan back in the day, even did a few competitions, too. Not being allowed to play was the worst thing about getting mono.

Qhora is sullen and angry. When she's not sullen, she's angry. When she's not angry, she's sullen. Most often, she's both. When she laughs, which is rarely, it's usually in schadenfreude or appreciation thereof. At best, she maintains a quiet watchfulness or professional courtesy, but she does not stray into the realm of friendliness. She seems stubborn about everything but actually has a fragile side that she keeps mostly to herself. She claims to value solitude and hedonism, but she's so thoroughly ensconced in the lies she tells herself that she is very close to believing them despite the fiction. When confronted with things she doesn't like - which is often, though perhaps not as perpetually as she believes - she prefers drastic avoidance, followed by venom and rage pent up and taken out later, either in lonesome raving that would make passing strangers assume lunacy if they could hear her or in making someone else's life miserable via a sort of latent aggression redirected onto a completely unrelated target. Many edits. More difficult than I thought at first.

Aye. To be honest, I assumed that was just another DRG set, or at best Disciple of War, based on the context of the other options. I'd love to be proven wrong.

The Au Ra are available tomorrow? The benchmark program is supposed to be launched tomorrow. Within it will be character creation for Au Ra, just as there was character creation for the benchmark before ARR was launched initially back in the day. If it works as before, you should be able to create a character and save it as a profile that you'll be able to use in the actual game when Heavensward actually launches. Apparently the naming rules aren't gonna be in it, though? Sad. Oh, and how do I do this benchmark thing? Is there a link with an explanation somewhere? Sorry for the noobish questions. :3 I'm sure it'll be linked somewhere on these forums as soon as it's available. It'll be something you need to download and run separately, but for now, it's just an announcement that it'll be here soon and we twiddle our thumbs until it exists.

The Au Ra are available tomorrow? The benchmark program is supposed to be launched tomorrow. Within it will be character creation for Au Ra, just as there was character creation for the benchmark before ARR was launched initially back in the day. If it works as before, you should be able to create a character and save it as a profile that you'll be able to use in the actual game when Heavensward actually launches. Apparently the naming rules aren't gonna be in it, though? Sad.

To quote myself from the Headlines forum.