Navarre

Great information. Thanks for posting it.

No problem, good luck.

Breaking into the rp in progress if you don't know the players can be difficult. What you did is exactly how I handle it: emote to indicate that I am rping and give them a chance to respond or not. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't for various reasons including missing the emote with all the chats flying around. Another tactic is to use the setting to your advantage and as a way to break the ice directly. Say if you're in the market, ask if they've seen a particular trader and such. It makes it more direct and gives them the chance to invite you in. So what you did I think is a good way of going about it overall, but there are some more direct ways. I met a fun rper in WoW who came up to me in Stormwind asking if I had seen her rat familiar who had wandered off. I liked that because it left me to option to just say 'no' if I wasn't in the mood or busy, or to dive in with questions about the rat if I was. Basically, the best bet is to give them a way to indicate a way to beg off. As to whispering, hrm, not sure. I'm still struggling with the chat functions as they're a bit different from what I'm used to. Hope that helps.

Hmm, interesting question/thread. Usually I strive for my characters to be unique and interesting rather than special. Special has the connotation that the character is better or matters more to the world in some way. Having unique and interesting as a goal keeps your flights of fancy bound within the transactional nature of RP. For example, Jehanne suffers from palsy brought on by excessive exposure to aether. She has to regulate it through a balm and potion, and by checking her spell-casting. This condition is the major wall blocking her from becoming the sorceress she wants to be and most of her decisions and actions are informed by it. Does this make her special? Perhaps, being that there probably not a lot of examples of disability due to aether exposure, though I doubt she wouldn't be the only one. It does, I hope, make her unique and interesting to others, and gives a predictable aspect of her character for them to latch onto. Now this 'unique' aspect of her character in no way implies that she is overly important to world events. All it does is explain her motivations for participating in the world: Why join the arcanists guild? Perhaps their form of magic would be less stressful. Why join the alchemists guild? Find better medicines for her conditions. Why join a free company? Networking to find those who may have insight into growing as a magic user despite her limitations. And all of these give her better reason to seek out other PCs, and to react to them in certain ways. Her feelings toward other spellcasters may fluctuate between admiration, curiosity, and jealousy. She may even prefer the company of armsmen because they don't remind her of her limitations. And in turn her reactions will give other players something to react to. So the goal shouldn't be 'special', perhaps the word should be banished because of all its unfortunate implications. Make your character unique so it is pleasing to you, and interesting so it is pleasing to others.

I hope he finds as much happiness in retirement as I did in watching "Spirited Away." And I found a megaton.

Huh, archer doesn't make any sense. Unless I'm missing something. Oh well.

Yeah. Murphy's Law reigns over mmo launches. While I wish that I was playing, I've been through too many launches and major patches (OMG the first night of the ICC patch was nuts) to really expect smooth sailing. I've always wondered if graduate student mathematicians thought about using mmo launches as a way to study chaos theory in action. Might make a fascinating (though impossible to read for me at least) dissertation. Anyway, Jehanne is level 10 and sitting in a tavern right now sipping some wine. She'll be fine, and I look forward to seeing her again.

Heh, I decided to crash after finally getting to roll Jehanne after launch. Guess that wasn't a bad call. Oh well. Again, I'm always pretty sanguine about these things. Murphy's Law always applies to MMOs.

SOOOOOEXCITED!!!!

Maybe after a few days or so. I want to run around basking the pure joy of playing first. Then I won't be too giggle headed for da serious rpz.

Wow, thanks for the great link.

Good question. I went to my SE account manager to see if I could set up a subscription but it's still blank. So I guess it's not time yet.

Yeah, finally got through and got my NA code. Up and registered. No confirmation email yet though. Ah well. Happy things seem to be working.

Well, classes will be starting up next week so I'll be working on syllabi and getting my readings and assignments up to snuff. And workshops as well. Funny the game comes out just as things get busy again.

Wow, really awesome. He reminds me of Mugen from Samurai Champloo for some reason.

Once I found out I couldn't roll on Balmung I basically gave up, which is fine. I never liked the idea of treating beta like the 'real' game at all. I was even planning on restarting for launch anyway. Also, bugs never really bothered me in mmos. Considering the sheer complexity of such games I always assume there's a certain butterfly effect going on that will cause the game to go awry. One of my favorite bugs I encountered in WoW was when I used an underleveled scroll of return and it sent me to heaven: no land, just a sunset bathed sky. I was stuck there for well over an hour before a GM could figure out what to do with me. I've been kicked off, lost items, fallen through the world, been unable to finish quests, but I still played. The only thing that ever angered me was when other players acted horrible.

Hmm, I'd like to go but with the servers closed I didn't get the chance to roll Jehanne yet. I think I'll have to wait until early access for rps.

I'm Jehanne Navarre.

I think so; I can't log back in either.

That's a brilliant idea. I really like the possibility of mixing and matching spell effects like that. Though I understand SE would be shy at first of messing with iconic stand alone spells. Part of the fun I had in WoW with my warlock was finding the best spells to handle a given encounter. I'm mostly talking about solo stuff which was my bread and butter. Rotations I left for boss fights: the only place they actually matter anyway. Mixing and matching spells and tactics was always fun. One of my favorite memories was picking my way through the gnoll camps in Elwynn forest (during TBC) and having to set up each and every mob pull. Can't just send in the voidwalker/imp cause he'd attract a bunch of them. Cast a curse, let the gnoll run to you, sic the voidy on him. Don't spam because he might attack you. Make sure you're standing int the right place otherwise an unseen gnoll would start stabbing you. Slow, methodical preplanning for each encounter. Of course things went awry and a whole camp descended on me. The passive targeting and 'button pushing' always felt interactive to me and seemed more like how a magic user would approach an encounter. That you have to know what you're doing ahead of time otherwise you're screwed. Though I can complete understand how it can be uninteresting for others. As some one else posted above, I think my years of playing turn-based rpgs affected my tastes. Still, your idea about creative mixing of spells could really add a lot of dynamism to the game.

And in my head it seems like weaving incantations, and reinforces the trade offs that come with being a magic user. You want to use dangerous words of power to invoke fire and death? Well you can't be bouncing around like a ninja to do it. Again, this is very much a 'no accounting for taste' thing. ARR's mechanics just happen to mix well with my aesthetics. It's really interesting just how much mechanics can affect not only the 'fun' of playing, but your sense of the character itself. I did think Neverwinter's combat was fun, just that it didn't feel right for a mage. When I played a rogue though, it didn't feel all that weird at all.

I'm actually quite happy with the combat in ARR. I've played GW2, Neverwinter, and Tera and while they were fun in short bursts, I found the combat really didn't jibe for me in the long run. I think it's probably because I always play mage characters and for some reason being a spell caster and running/blinking around just doesn't feel right. I've always pictured spell casting as taking a certain amount of concentration so running in circles as you spam an attack just seems weird to me. Now I know each of the above games are not all chicken-with-head-cut-off bad (I humbly submit Neverwinter as being the worst in that regard), but they all work against the methodical action I associate with magic users. I know a lot of people hate it, but I really prefer being forced to stand in once place to cast a spell. The methods you develop to work within that limitation appeals to me. So all in all, I'm very comfortable with the combat design. Anyway, that's my two cents.

*imagines Lalafell slappy fight*

*comes at you* :dazed: Oof. That was dumb. Anyway, I like, especially the assonance of the As and Os. It's fun to say.

Heh Oddly enough, most call me 'Jeh'. Thanks for the input all.