Suisei'to

It varies. I try to keep my character choices up in the air. I've got a Seeker, a Keeper, a Midlander, a Highlander and a Roe. It really depends on the aesthetic I'm trying to convey. Each race has a certain feeling to their actions. Highlanders are generally very confident and strong. Midlanders tend to be the most meek of the races (Outside of lalafel). Miqo'te tend to look very aggressive or arrogant. Elezen even more arrogant. Roe are powerhouses. When I create a character I look at the personality I'm trying to convey vs the body language of the races. When I wanted to make my Dragoon, Suisei'to, he needed to be very aggressive. Sexuality was a none issue which lead me down to playing a Keeper. Give him a very deadly sibling rivalry with a very small (Theoretical) pool of males in the species and I got what I wanted: An aggressive loner lancer trying to hone his skills to kills his brother. So, long story short, it's more about the personality and it's compatibility to body language when it comes to creating a character.

It doesn't have to be the "nature of the beast." That's kind of the point people are making. And it shouldn't be the "nature of the beast." And no, it's not the same as a raid. I pay for this content, and I may never get to even see it. Not ever. Because it's so far out of reach that it might as well not exist. That used to be the definition of raiding. In fact it still is as far as Turn 4 and Turn 5 are concerned, the same with the difficulty spike going into Extreme Mode Primals. There are many, many ways to make large amount of Gil in today's market. The old standards don't apply anymore because they demand decreases while the supply increases. Crafted endgame gear is less important because more and more people already have endgame gear. On the flipside, you have the new explosion that the cooking market is going to see. Now that food effects aren't removed upon death, there is a constant demand to meet. Furniture is not going to suddenly arrive and save the economy now, it's going to be a standard. Demand isn't going to be there, so don't look at it. On the flip side alt leveling is going to get more attention with Duty Roulette and the leveling of an alt no longer hurts your progress on you main class. Equipment is still going to be a big deal but gathering/fishing will remain the big money makers, as they have been for the last month or so. At the same time there is going to be a lot of Gil coming into the economy thanks to the new systems. Hundreds of gil coming in from Duty Roulette alone, all duty monsters dropping gil, end game dungeon monsters dropping even MORE gil, treasure chests dropping 5k gil a pop and things start to add up. The average amount of gil made during a standard single 1-50 is going up considerably. This is going to reflect in inflation in the market. Housing is going to have an effect on the market, yes, but at the same time the price point has been set to deflate some of the interest. There are just as many FCs that are going to just ignore the feature and now have thousands to millions of Gil they are more willing to spend on progression or PvP. There is always millions of Gil ready to be made at any moment on the market. It just takes the patience to read into the market changes.

The big difference is the back loaded difficulty (Raid) vs front loaded difficulty (housing). Ultimately, this is the nature of the beast. It could change in the future but for now it's going to take a lot of man hours to hammer out what's needed for housing.

It's like I'm really playing an old school MMO. Edit: Actually, I have more to say about this. From the get go FFXIV has had the mentality of a Old School MMO with Modern upgrades. This has extended into the gear grind, Coil raiding (Especially Turn 4 and 5), the extensive crafting, the plans for PvP and now it's been extended into housing. I don't find the price point shocking given the nature of the MMO being crafted. So, housing is going to be expensive and is unlikely to drop below a 10mil price point. That just means that the FCs that do manage the feat (Especially the large mansions) have accomplished something big together. Is it any different than Coil raiding? It's an advertised part of the game that anyone that puts the time into it can accomplish with a talented group of individuals. Housing is the same way except not in a Raiding context. I'm sure PvP has the same mentality, a long term investment that pays out in accomplishment. In the end it's about fostering a community of like minded players and forging something together. Much like the RP-C is for us. I suppose the best way to think of it is that there are four types of End Game in FFXIV: Raiding PvP RP Crafting (Housing)

The 2.1 patch "A Realm Awoken" is now available to be downloaded. Login to your launcher and it will start the process. Note: This patch is more than 3gbs so allow time to download. Patch Notes here. Notable Features: The Crystal Palace Duty Roulette Extreme Mode Primal Battles Treasure Hunting Beast Tribe Dailies Main Scenario PvP Housing HILDIBRAND

And more art to post now that finals are done! Aldwin Ryder and Frag:

You're in luck. It's the black friday/cyber monday deal time on Newegg. A lot of parts are heavily discounted. HOWEVER, there is still a general design philosophy when building a computer. You need to aim for a similar range of parts over the entire system or you bottle neck yourself. Luckily there's a guide for that: http://www.logicalincrements.com/ This is a FANTASTIC guide to parts broken down by price range all through Newegg. It's the perfect way to build for your budget with the best parts possible in that price range.

Out of all the Linkshells and Free Companies I've looked into since release, this is the first that has grabbed my attention. I'll be dropping an application of relatively soon.

Drawing armor is fun, it makes this zen like state as you draw the intricate curves and details. Coloring it on the other hand is rough. With all the details you then have different textures.

Wow, I didn't expect the turn out this survey has gotten. It's been over a week so I'd like to go over the results so far: Our male to female ratio of characters are nearly even, though I believe some people didn't actually put anything down for their gender. To bad, but it's always good to have a balance of the genders in RP. Now for the races: It's no surprise that the Mi'qote lead the races. They've been very popular for a long time and still attract players consistently. What is surprising is that the Seekers of the Sun heavily outweigh the Keepers. In fact if you combine the Seekers and Keepers they outnumber all the other races, excluding Midlander, COMBINED. Midlanders are the next popular, only trailing by 3 votes behind the Keepers. It's no surprise, human characters are often popular in MMOs. What is interesting is that the other human race, the Highlanders are trailing significantly behind the Midlanders. They are still more popular than the other races, but there is a definite difference between the two populations. The Elezen are next with the Duskwright behind just 2 votes ahead of the Wildwood. This isn't terribly shocking given how polarizing their appearances can be. Next we have the Plainsfolk and Dunesfolk. Again, the Lalafel tend to be polarizing given their child like natures. However, the Dunesfolk heavily outnumber the Plainsfolk. Apparently greed is important! Finally we have the Roes. There are a few interesting tidbits out of the Roes. While the other races are fairly balanced between the races, there is only a single Seawolf compared to 7 Hellsguard. Further, the females of the Roe outnumber the males 2 to 1. Long live muscle girls! I'll be leaving this poll open for a few more weeks to hopefully get some more results. Feel free to leave your own thoughts on the survey so far!

It's soooo good. I love the pastel colors you use.

Hell yes!

Ah, the age old MMORPG issue: Elitism. The reality of the genre is that elitism is a very real thing, the game itself creates a progressive difficulty curve that supports players with more time and skill to rise above others. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with this set up but the elitist community will often times become inclusive, strangling itself over the long term. There's plenty of examples through different MMOs, especially with FFXI, WoW and EQ. The same time of nature ends up bleeding into the RP community as well. Each person has a naturally different style and personality with their RP. People who have similar RP experiences tend to gravitate to one another naturally, growing friendships and tight communities. This, however, leads to the same kind of inclusive behavior we see in raiding guilds. There is a familiarity there that others can have a hard time cracking. Some call these Cliques, but in reality they are often mistaken as Elitism. Standards are often touted as elitism as well, however is having standards for your free time really all that elitist? The reality of the situation is that we all have limited game time and we would all rather do it having fun. Some people don't have fun when people aren't up to their standards, what ever they may be. This isn't necessarily bad either, I think we can all understand and support wanting to spend our free time doing something we enjoy. The line gets crossed when behavior becomes rude, by either side. To be frank, being pushy with someone when they don't want to RP is just rude behavior. So is someone dismissing and interested party offhandedly without explaining they just have other interests. In our P.C. society sometimes avoiding the issue creates more issues at the start. When it comes down to it Elitism is often a label used to cover up other issues. It's a security blanket to avoid confrontation or even a simple explanation. Talk, be polite and be thorough and we wouldn't have these issues any longer.

Going to be signing off on art for the night. Here's progress so far, Keti: Not the happiest so far on some of the texture but I'll work on it more tomorrow.

I often meld two or more characters that inspire me for background then build up their personality from there. With FFXIV, I like to take certain Square properties and real world personalities. Suisei'to Ohki: Is my intense character. He has a very specific goal in mind and works tirelessly for it. He's also sarcastic, rude and straight to the point. He has little care for others as long as he gets what he wants. For inspiration I pulled from Kain Highwind (FFIV) and CM Punk (WWE) Armin Whiteblade: A fun loving gambler, accomplished bard and a decent merchant. Armin gets buy with a silver tongue and luck, giving him a much more care free personality. For inspiration I pulled from Setzer Gabbiani (FFVI) and Nathan Fillion Alwind Ryder: A young Paladin from a long line of Sultansworn, Alwind is trying to find his place in the world. He takes immense pride in his father and mother's accomplishments and has taken to the new way of the Sultansworn: Going freelance. He roams the countryside trying to come to terms his responsibilities, his hormones and the nagging intelligent sword of his father's blade. For inspiration I pulled from Frog (CT) and Harry Dresden (The Dresden Files)