Iroh

I'm an actor myself... and have you ever heard of an aside? And then in TV and film, there's actual narration often. Look, I'm not one to ever say most things looked down on in RP are fine... but thought narration, depending on the incident, is not always meta-gaming. Having a character type out a narration of what he or she is feeling can have a NUMBER of interesting uses, be it letting other players around you in on a joke you can't express as that character but CAN express as the player, or be it clue in others on little things your character's face or voice might be giving away to any character experienced enough to read people. We can't convey everything we can convey in person through text when we are limited to ONLY actions. It's just not possible. Human beings are too complex for that. A picture, after all, is worth 1,000 words (at the least) right? So yes, normally, limit your emotes to actions... but every now and then, I'm sure thoughts fit and are ok, and it's not meta-gaming. It's just one of those issues where you can't put a definitive label on something because there are just TOO many variables that will crop up. What you CAN do, however, is just say "don't ever let your character know exactly someone's thoughts just because they typed them into an emote." Now THAT is meta-gaming. That's a rule that everyone can live by, unless you are playing a character that can read minds... or something. And sure, many may say if you don't type thoughts EVER than you simply remove the temptation for others to meta-game... and if you feel this helps you rather than hinder you, by all means go for it. Never post thoughts ever, only what another can normally "see." But telling someone else that to emote thoughts now and then is "bad" RP just doesn't fit the definition of what online roleplay really is: Telling a story with others through the format of text.

A water shrew? I'm confused. EDIT: Yet more proof I should watch something completely before I pass judgement. That was hilarious.

NO kidding. I think Ul'dah is a third breed of Miqo'te. We got Seekers of the Sun, Keepers of the Moon, and now Strippers of the Heavenly Body.

That's not entirely how it happens as I got higher. I would run out of mana pretty much at the end of EVERY leve, and if I wanted to try to skill up because I had no leves? I'd run out of it fast and have to run back to the crystal constantly. The answer sometimes to that was always "just use spirit dart more." ... well, far be it from me to complain but... spirit dart is probably the most boring attack EVER... and it's kind of annoying that so far one of the class mechanics is to just spam "1" a lot. >.> It might balance out later once you get past rank 10 and get more and more mp regen skills, but around 7-10 and perhaps a few ranks beyond that, it's actually kinda' difficult to balance at all. For a Thaum. One thing I don't like so much is how careful you DO need to balance it all right now. Because mp NEVER regens, ever... it's not like after a tough fight you can just take a break and heal up like every other class. You literally have to run back, until food and/or potions are commonplace, of course. I think I'd like the system slightly more if we had the same kind of MP regen out of combat that people get for their health. Combat was still fun as a magic user, but I sure as heck understand why they've only released 2 so far... Magic Users need a bit more tweaking before they are "as fun" or "as polished" I think as the other classes.

All great spots so far! Makes me antsy now to check out what areas are in Ul'dah and Gridania. >.>

It is funny, but actually it just acts as "/confused" in other games. When you target someone and use it you get like "You are confused by so and so" or "You don't understand so and so" or something along those lines.

So, in every MMO there's always a few places where RPers "unofficially" congregate when looking for random interaction. Usually it's a club, or bar, or tavern, or 'meeting' area that's close to where newer players can easily get but still sort of "off the beaten path" from the masses, to avoid too much spam all the time and potential ease of griefing by non-RPers. It's too soon to pick these spots for Ul'Dah or Gridania, but as I ran about Limsa Lominsa I thought one of the potential 'hotspots' could be the Marauder's guild. Not only is that ship full of different areas one can hang out with others, there's even a 'bar' in there with an entertainer on the stage and NPCs sitting around. I thought this might be a good place for RPers to congregate in Limsa if they want to just have their character IC "kick back" and look for others for some fun random RP interaction. Events can be held here too, like parties, balls, whatever... but I feel it's possibly perfect to act as a sort of 'known hotspot' for any time when a bunch of RPers just want to find RP. We can talk about other areas in the other cities here when we know more about them, and also talk about picking some place BESIDES the area I mentioned for Limsa if you all want. Just thought I'd start up the discussion about it for now. What do others think?

I went with new, it was more fitting!

I should hope so.

I wasn't going to originally do this, but then I happened to be put forth with a challenge that felt... well... epic. Warning, the following may offend, so I'm putting it in a spoiler just in case >.>

I think the worse thing about this system is IF it remains as it currently is now, it will punish casual players as well. It just needs to be adjusted to be way less harsh. It's REALLY harsh now, literally forcing even a casual player to level SEVERAL other jobs, and craft, and gather... not just one or two extra ranks. It also doesn't help that SE is focusing on a system labeled as "negative reinforcement" instead of labeling it as positive reinforcement. WoW did exactly this in beta. They created a system where if you were playing nonstop you'd be fatigued... if you logged off in an inn you gained "rest" and thus weren't fatigued anymore. People hated this, they complained... and Blizzard listened. So all they did was take the EXACT SAME system they had started with and called it something else. "Rested XP." Now the "you are fatigued" experience became "normal xp" and the "You are not fatigued" experience became "Bonus, rested xp." Seriously, that's all they did, relabel the system... but that's all it took. Positive reinforcement vs. Negative reinforcement.

I had a 76 year old in my WoW raid group. Paladin. He played AMAZING!

The articles are back, as are the pictures. Also, IGN just put this up. It's just 'more of the same' written by another writer though. http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/finalfantasy14/news.html?sid=6273544&mode=previews&om_act=convert&om_clk=previews&tag=previews%3Btitle%3B3&page=1

Iroh = Dal Riata

With how soon it's coming out I actually expected it all to be a lot worse. This constructive criticism here is nice to see as well, no one is coming off as a fanboy here. I guess because my expectations are so low about certain things, I won't be disappointed. What I really want the MOST is a beautiful, huge world to explore with lots of different things to do RP-wise, and from what you guys have said, that important core of the game is there. So woohoo!