ArmachiA

Get Machinist, level it to 60. Cry as I watch everyone not switching jobs get to do all the cool stuff before me.

I have a bad reputation with Repelling Shot. A REALLY BAD REPUTATION. If I can find a way to screw something up with that one ability, I will. Repelling backward and eating all the tank orbs in Ramuh? I've done it. Repelled off the Titan arena? Done it (I've heard they fixed that though >.>) Repelling into the giant insta-kill barrier in T11? Done it. Repelled into the wall in T5, T9, and T13? You betcha! It's gotten to the point that whenever we go into something new everyone says "Armi don't use Repelling Shot." They are all pretty glad I'm switching to Machinist.

14 is legal in Japan but in Tokyo it's 16 (Which is generally more accepted). But that's only consent guys and not what they consider adulthood, in Japanese Tradition they don't beleive you hit adulthood till 20. For girls, there's even a ceremony and you can drink and smoke at 20. As of right now so is the right to vote, but that's getting lowered to 18.

Hermit's Hovel used to be the ERP hotspot, but it was still nothing like Goldshire - more like a Japanese Love hotel people would go to to be alone in the corner of the world. No one hung around there looking for/advertising erp.

I honestly don't think there is a Goldshire equivalent in this game, which is nice it hasn't devolved that way.

That's the one thing that really confuses me about Black Desert... it claims to be a sandbox... but has gender locked classes. Weird ass design decision.

^ 90% of Korean MMOs look identical. B&S even have an Elin race from TERA. Anime Waifus in tiny tiny clothing is the norm there There's no MMO in the future right now on the Horizon at all that interests me, which is the first time for me in awhile. I am looking at Black Desert, it looks like it could be good, but I'm wary on Korean MMOs

I wanted to like Wildstar, I really did. I just didn't like most anything it did. Housing was top notch though

Would be kind of fun though if one of the expansions was the Elementals regaining their power and then turning on the mortals. Greenwrath, Greenwrath everywhere.

Machinist. Been waiting for a gun class since launch of 1.0. IT IS TIME/

Well, whether they can take it away themselves or just have a mortal/hearer do it for them wasn't my original point, my original point was accessing the Succor without their permission will get them to try to stop you and would definitely get Gridania to stop you - making an unapproved White Mage highly unlikely. But we're so far away from that point right now. Personally, it's not defined in lore and I don't let it define who I interact with (There are also plenty of people in my guild who disagree with my assessment of the Elementals themselves), it's just something I think they might be able to do. They may not be able to, which would explain why they have such tight control over who can access the Succor or not, because once they hand it over they can't take it away, and I'm okay with that.

I don't believe they are gods, but I do believe they have ultimate control over over the Succor and have proven to be violent and aggressive if their will is challenged. They are also powerful enough to scare mortals, dictate decisions of Mortals, and ultimately control the magic they protect. Are they resting on their laurels now that the Calamity happened? There's a good indication that they are since in 1.0 the Elementals were pretty terrifying and weren't afraid to show their power, but in 2.0 they've been mostly complaining about people on their lawn. They aren't gods, but that doesn't make them something people should ignore either. I honestly just don't believe the Elementals wouldn't know if someone accessed the Succor without their permission. They have such tight control on it, it just doesn't make sense they wouldn't know. To me, it means they probably have ways to take it away. I guess I believe as the Gridanians do in that respect. It's funny because this whole discussion could be IC and still make sense.

Isn't this like a Roleplaying staple? lol. To be honest, I dislike kidnapping storylines. I feel like they are overdone and used for quick and easy drama and, therefore, Armi has never been kidnapped (Well, for a couple hours many moons ago). HOWEVER, I understand the need for kidnapping storylines. It's easy to establish "good" and "bad", it's fun for the players to figure out where someone is, there's usually an interesting climax. It makes for fun stories for people, so I never restrict it when people come to me and say they want their characters to be kidnapped. It's not really about my own opinion, it's about the player's fun. As a GM I know it's fun for people so if it makes sense in the storyline I just go with it. Sometimes I even plan it on my own, since I know which players would enjoy something like that and like surprises. I've probably done about... 10? kidnapping over 2 years of the game? Maybe a little more. Some of them have even produced really interesting results (My favorites were drugging someone with an experimental potion and breaking someone so completely they forgot who they even were). I'll probably do more kidnappings in the future, too, since it's a popular trope.

Wouldn't the Elementals have taken Succor away though, if they could have instead of the big flood? Granted the WHM were only half of the situation but they were still 50% causing the "end". To me, the big flood felt more like a punishment for abusing the Succor more than a "We need to get them to stop using it" BUT even if that is the only way they can get rid of someone abusing the Succor (By killing them or whatever) it's still a way to turn off the switch. Probably... not as much currently since they don't have as much power. The problem is, we aren't really sure how much power we do and don't have right now, which is an issue. They could be stealth killing abusers or telling hearers to stealth kill abusers and we would never know. (Again I say "to me", as this is just my opinion and only mine. In fact the whole "I believe the Elementals can take away the use of Succor." doesn't really factor into my guild running since there isn't enough evidence to set a rule on that - though some people believe as I do and did a storyline around it. Just a disclaimer) /anecdotal evidence: most new players who come into my guild are really happy that we're willing to sit down with them for hours at a time and discuss lore to make sure they are within the boundaries of it and make sure that their character is exactly how they want it to be while being lore appropriate. Most newcomers don't know lore or really where to get it, they usually just build a character of what they assume and are pretty grateful when we work with them to smooth out their story. Sure it takes time, but most - if not all - have been grateful for us to teach them instead of ignoring them and letting them do whatever.

I believe Raya-O-Senna says something to this effect at the end of the level 30 WHM job quest -- something that's more or less, "if you abuse this power, the elementals will tear it away from you" -- but, IMO, we need to look at that through the lens of who's saying it and overall context of the quest. She could truly believe that, or she could mostly believe that but be trying to bully the Adventurer, who she doesn't like and doesn't trust. That's what I'm referring to yeah. It could be a case of unreliable narrator, which is fine, but it makes sense to me that if the Elementals can gift it, they can surely take it away. We know the Padjal can use the Succor only because the Elementals say they can - what we don't know is if there's a way to get around the Elementals for that. For this, I prefer to be safe until the devs tell us otherwise. That's not bullying. If you think preferences are bullying then I don't know what to tell you. I don't think I've ever harassed anyone nor made any newcomer feel unwelcome. I run a guild, a very large guild, and so you know how many people have gotten mad when I say we don't allow IC WHMs at this time? Zero. Even new players don't care that much. I explain the lore, they shrug and ask if they can still heal and I say yeah, because Conjury does the job 99% of the time. There is a huge difference between "These are the rules that we follow" and "You are forced to follow my rules even if you don't play in my sandbox." The irony of this whole thing is you are being completely intolerant of the views of those who want to follow lore, while spouting that we are being intolerant by letting you play whatever you want.

To me, White Mage isn't one of them simply because you have to get passed a sentient being that controls who has access. You may be able to access the Succor for one spell, but you certainly won't be able to do it again once the Elementals catch wind. Right now there's no real substantial way to play a WHM simply because the Elementals are going "lolno" even being trained by a Padjal doesn't guarantee anything, because you can learn but the Elementals will still block access. Elementals control the Succor, no one else, and that's super strict in lore. However, the Devs did hint at loosening those purse strings a little, so I'm interesting in seeing what they do so more people can have access. And does every White Mage discussion have to devolve into "Why won't you play with me?" and get turned into a big ol fight over who's "elitist" and who's not?

You have a point in that last sentence. I'd love to hear what new players think, honestly. I have a few in my FC now who don't seem to mind but... anecdotal evidence.

Armi is a musician, though I don't get to use it much. To do that, I do something a little weird, but it works for me. I listen to a lot of Jpop, songs that most Westerners wouldn't hear (Since I don't really listen to anime songs), so I take the translation of those songs, then rewrite the songs into English (making the words still fit the melody, adding English song writing conventions like Rhyme, making them fit the world of Eorzea instead of our world, etc etc) and throw them somewhere so I always have them handy. Usually in her journal. Sometimes, if I feel the backtrack has a lot of guitar or piano, I'll even record new vocals for them. Then, if it ever comes up in RP - making macros with those song lyrics help or even just having them handy to type up. If I'm around people I'm comfortable with, I'll post a link of my rerecorded version instead so people can hear it. You can pretty much do this with anything. I just don't want to run around saying Armi wrote "Landslide" or anything, so I use lesser known music. It actually helps me a lot. You can also do this by just... writing your own lyrics without the need of a backing track. Just make sure you describe what kind of song it is.

If your character can do something - there should be an explanation as to why. If your character has issues with something - there should be an explanation as to why. If your character has a tragic history - it should be well thought out so it doesn't confuse players who ask about it. A backstory is wholly necessary to build a complete and three dimensional character that really fits into the world. It doesn't need to be too detailed, you don't need to know your characters favorite color right away for instance, but a solid foundation makes for a solid character. HOWEVER, if your character is only your backstory, it's going to be difficult to connect. We all have RPed with that person who sat down in and in 5 minutes of knowing you was drowning you in their own personal backstory. Backstory mostly benefits YOU, it doesn't really benefit others - especially when you first meet them. It's important to also have a solid personality for your character too and then once they get to know people the backstory can come out. I'm not really one for pushing Armi's backstory on people, preferring to do it slowly through dialogue then say - doing it like above or even trying to set up Storylines where only my backstory is important. It's hard for people to really care about your dead mother if they don't know you and personality is really the only way to do that. Once they get to know you it's a lot easier for characters to care about your backstory. Like with most things in RP, balance is important.

There's an entire guild right on this server of Bad guys, saying they don't have the same rights as normal PCs is kind of... not true.

Working on getting Loki through the MSQ to get her ready to switch her and Langli. Since I wanted Langli to be DRK in training and we found out that you have to be 50 to unlock the jobs, I decided to just switch the two come Heavensward and relevel Loki at my leisure. Though I may be tempted to switch her to Astrologian when I do.

Is it a strange design choice to have jobs locked until 50? Yeah. Is it something I'm surprised about? Nope. I think the only real game we can compare FFXIV to is it's sister game FFXI - which basically has the same design philosophy wrapped up in a grindier package. FFXI had a lot of classes gated behind 30, in fact most of them were except for the original 6. Before you say "But so does this game!" unlocking White Mage for CNJ was not the same as playing a RDM and then trying to unlock SMN once you get 30. "But it's 30, not cap level!" Well that's the rub... level 30 was a huge slog to get to, it was a slow process that, back in 2003, probably took as much time to hit as FFXIV's level 50. In fact this was probably true until Abyssea in 2010 - which a lot of players said ruined the game because it made everything easier. Not only did they unlock at 30, each one had a bullshit quest attached to it that varied in difficulty, but nearly all of them you needed high level friends to even help clear (Anyone remember trying to get NIN by yourself at 30? HAHAHAHAHA hahahaha... hahaha...). It's difficult and tedious, and they never stopped doing it. Here's the thing: Like it or hate it. Square Enix LOVES GATES. It's their favorite thing in the world. In FFXI every 5 levels past 50 was locked behind a gate - a difficult quest from Maat to increase your level tier. Most of the Promathia expansion was locked behind the huge gate called Promyvions (Oh, Prom... I curse your name). Sky was gated. Sea was gated. Gates everywhere, all the gates. That carried over to FFXIV. Did anyone find it weird that the last month before the expansion, instead of just... oh I dunno... dropping the gates of T5 and T9 to get into FCOB, they... uh... didn't do that at all. Just giving FCOB an echo bonus that... probably wasn't necessary. They wanted to make FCOB easier for people already in FCOB? It's a month till expansion, let the gates down! But they won't, to them gates mean prestige. It's how you show you accomplished something and it's pretty tangible beyond looking up achievements. You know anyone with a FCOB piece has cleared T5 and T9 (And Titan hard). You know anyone who has a Shiva pony also went through the BS of unlocking all the primals before her. You know simply from an item they have what they did to get said item. And SE LIKES that for better or for worse. To them, DRK/AST/MCH are prestige classes. Something that you need to work toward and so other people know you worked toward it. Prestige classes aren't new to the RPG scene, Dungeons and Dragons has Prestige classes. Do I think it's silly? Yeah sure. But I also know how SE is. SE is SE. Just like Blizzard is Blizzard and NCSoft is ass. Each company does things differently in order to show accomplishments. SE's way can be quite bullshit. HOWEVER. I don't think that this game is newbie unfriendly at all. The game is still EXTREMELY newbie friendly. When you walk in as a new player you will know those three classes are Prestige classes. You'll know because it's telling you so. As a new player you'll probably just... sigh and roll a Warrior or something. New players did it in FFXI, they did it in WoW too (With Death Knight, level 55 was killer if you were new!), and it's something that a new player will... probably just accept if they want to play the game. It's not like most new players are whiny babies and will throw a tantrum and leave. They'll look at all the options and either play or not play. And since the game is exceedingly popular, my guess is they will most likely play. Will FFXIV lose some business over this? Yes. But they lose business over a lot of things. Any design decision they make is a subscription lose from Bob Joe who decides that the hill he's going to die on. SE doesn't make decisions based on how many subscriptions they may lose, if they did, they would make no decisions.

I have the Bard Coat and Tank coat from there, but I still have no luck on getting weapons to drop. If you catch me on I can help dps it (and tank the red golem if your solo tanking ). If you do decide to get people clears, I'd rather you give me a time to be on because right now I'm free anytime, but playing the Witcher 3

Oh Goodness... Armi technically started as "Armachia" - a Lasombra Vampire in Vampire: The Masquerade that I rolled as a villain when I was new at the whole GMing thing. I say technically because everything about her is completely different, I mostly just derived Armi's name from Armachia's later when I started playing FFXI. "Armi" as I basically know her today, started there in 2003: 2003, Armi Alliando, FFXI It was my first time ever playing an MMO and, at the time, I just assumed everyone in MMO's RPed. Why wouldn't they? It's an RPG! I was very naive. Anyway, at the time, my usual go-to RP characters were all Snarky, Femme Fatale types and I wanted to try something new, so I decided to roll a Yuna-esque character; very sweet, kind of quiet, total badass summoner. But, she was also the daughter of a pirate who died when she was young and she was raised by Galka in Bastok. Her personality was fine-ish - she was quiet and demure, nice and sweet, with a martyr complex that has transferred to each incarnation of her but as I learned about how MMO roleplaying worked, I began to despise her backstory. She was a complete Mary Sue/Special Snowflake and I really only got away with it because at the time I was running the only RP guild on the server (Quetz server what up?). She was basically a super powerful "Chosen one" summoner like Yuna, Heir to a Pirate throne in Norg because her dad was once a top dog Pirate captain, an ambassador between Hume and Galka relations because she was raised by them - the list goes on and on. After about a year, I realized that I had made my character so special she was overshadowing EVERYONE all the time and in MMOs we all kind of have to play on the same field, so I did everything I could to wipe the slate without retconning - taking away her summoner powers, making her a normal ass Red Mage and just becoming a pirate somewhere in Norg. I liked the new version a lot better, but it took so long to fix, by the time I liked her I was three and a half years into the game and was ready to move on. Killed her off and went to WoW. Lesson Learned: No more special snowflakes! They can actually damage other people's stories rather than make them better and I vowed never to do that again. Kept her nice side and her Martyr tendencies in all future incarnations. If she isn't nice, she isn't Armi. 2007 - Armi Aethertide (WoW) You probably noticed I wasn't on an RP server when this screenshot was taken. Well, that's because until I learned the actual rules on MMO RP, I decided to stay out of it. I didn't really want to make any mistakes like I did with Armi 1.0 and the LS that I ran (We RPed the story in FFXI, I learned thats a no-no in WoW), so we set up the Night Blades with a bunch of our friends on the Boulderfist server while I kept my eye on RP forums. Eventually, all of us decided to move to Emerald Dream so the ones who wanted to rp could. Armi in WoW was much less demure than her FFXI counterpart, I thought I made her too quiet in FFXI so I tried to shift away from that by making her a bit more outspoken. She was secretly against Kael'thas and didn't trust him, but didn't say anything because Silvermoon was downright scary for dissenters. She was still a nice person and had that eternal Martyr streak, but she was strong willed and independant. She was very much a loner and preferred the company of her Lion more than most people and though I played her for 2 years, she never romanced a soul. Some say this is my best incarnation of Armi, but honestly I found her just a touch too bratty and stand offish. However, I kind of liked she was a bit of a loner, so I pretty much kept that in al future incarnations. Here I came to find a distaste for people who didn't follow lore. There were so many Blood Elf rpers who played High Elves, so many who were half-demons or half-angels, Fallen Angels, Vampires, Ghosts, Besties with Thrall, Immortal Highlanders, etc etc that finding people who just wanted to discuss Silvermoon politics as normal ass Blood Elves was hard to come by. RP outside Silvermoon was better, but for some reason ignoring lore was just completely common practice in WoW. Lessoned Learned: I liked lore of games and decided after WoW I wanted to find people who also liked Lore in games to rp with. I also learned not to put my character too close to the main story, a lot of rp forums discussed it as something you didn't do and it made sense to me, so I stopped doing it from that point on. Kept Armi's more loner girl side from this incarnation, as I ended up enjoying that Armi lived off screen as well. 2008 - Armi (No last name) - Aion Fun Fact: Asmodeans don't have last names unless their nobility. I talked a little about her before, but this is my least favorite incarnation of Armi. The idea was she was going to be an immortal (As all characters in Aion are) who hated being an immortal and became obsessed with death. She became too morbid really, and eventually became really hard to play. She was morose, but extremely sarcastic and kind of snide. What I did end up liking was that she was a bit awkward in social interaction, having pretty much outcasted herself and so she didn't really understand social norms. I played this completely straight (While in FFXIV I tend to play it for laughs) and it worked well enough. This was my first attempt at a more damaged character, someone with a lot hiding underneath the surface and it had... varied results. She was deeply damaged, broke two mens hearts, was a constant source of drama to all those around her. It was an issue because I overplayed it, trying to push her "depths" in every conversation I had with ANYONE. Eventually I backed myself into a corner and after about 9 months just quit the game. Lesson Learned: "Hidden Depths" is a term for a reason, and I learned subtly is a lot more effective than shoving it in everyones face all the time, after this, I started being a little more sly with my characters damages, letting people find out about them over time instead of shoving them down people's throats in the first meeting. This has worked so much better for me. I also took her social awkwardness with me to future games, that ending up being something I liked, and dropping the sarcastic nature permanently. Sarcasm isn't Armi. Also purple eyes became a must from here on out! I just fell in love with Armi having violet eyes from then on. 2010 - Armi Duvignau - FFXIV Same Armi, before some racial Retconning. 1.0's Armi was a priestess of Nymeia and an extremely devout one at that. She believed that free will was a complete myth and everything we did was the will of the Twelve. She wasn't a person in her mind, she was a vessel. Because of how unshakable her faith was, she didn't have many friends - only used to studying scripture or praying - so she didn't understand social norms, but she didn't mind that. She was fine being alone. She was alright to play in 1.0, but she was extremely restrictive, since she was so devout and didn't really want or need friends she mostly kept to herself and I could only pull her out when it made sense. This made her awkward to play - while she had all the traits I liked (Nice, Awkward, Martyr Complex, kind of a loner) her backstory made her less fluid and more like a rock. I enjoyed her, but couldn't really bring her out as much as I wanted to, making Loki my main so I could be more open. Her 1.0 story made for a really good backstory, but as a current story it was just too hard to RP. Lesson Learned: Restricting your own character is kind of a downer, I decided to try to find ways to keep them open no matter the backstory. 2011 - Armi Aethertide - Star Wars: The Old Republic I think I was really starting to find Armi's stride here, though honestly the character will never be perfect. I decided to make Armi a force user who was for the Republic, but against the Jedi which made her a Grey Jedi but for fun I made her a bit dark sided. This caused a lot of interesting interaction with her with Jedi since they were either trying to get her to join the Jedi Order or just trying to kill her. She was extremely guarded because of it, but was generally very nice - she just didn't like talking about herself just in case. She was quite serious here, not really getting jokes (Which I ended up really liking) and not really understanding how to unwind. Watching her at a bar was unintentionally hilarious. I think though, I made her too serious, really. Like the Armi Aethertide before her, she never romances anyone, she was just too serious for that nonsense. Lesson Learned: I didn't really like how serious Armi had gotten through the different incarnations, but I also wasn't really sure I could change that and pull it off well enough. 2013 - Armi Alliando - FFXIV: ARR And here we are now. I took all of her backstory from 1.0 and kept it, only changing her race (and therefore last name) because I ended up not liking the Elezen animations in Beta. However, I turned it into a complete backstory, after Carteneau she left the Priesthood and dedicated herself to finding out who SHE was. I was going to play Armi completely straight like previous incarnations, but right at the last minute (Really, right as I was going to rp with her in game the first time) I decided to make her a goofball. She's shy (Something new, I never really rolled shy before), awkward, kind of a Martyr, Talks to plants like their people, doesn't understand social norms, is completely nice and sweet, genuine to a fault, has a lot of damage from things in her past, kind of loner. She's everything I've been building up to in past games and, so far, she's my favorite incarnation. This isn't to say she's done, I already have ideas for the next Armi in any other MMOs I play to refine her even more. It's been a long strange trip.