Momo

Rather than some, I would say the majority of courtesans, both male and female, consider themselves to be prostitutes or act as such. The best way that I have seen to counteract this from my experience, is just have integrity and faith in your own character and the portrayal you choose. It gets a little exhausting, but being vigilant in telling people that ERP isn't all your about is rewarding when people ask for your to perform courtly duties, and enjoy your character for the atmosphere they create, the little gestures, words, and actions your character takes to entertain your partner and those around them. It can be done! Just gotta put in the work and dedication and find a place your character fits in, either a group or specific friends.

I am having my characters take an extended stay in the region rather than traveling back and forth. I think with the interest and number of people likely moving into the area, that there won't be RP lacking unless you corner yourself with plot, and traveling back and forth to me, seems...well as admitted, hand-wavey, but to a level I'm not comfortable with as I have never seen Aetheryte travel as a very very common thing. I think there is a certain amount of fear and uncertainty for many who have been in Eorzea for so long, that some do not want to create a story that forces them to stay for a little while. That is okay, I just think for me, it is better to try out a new venture and not allow myself to go back on it so as to force me a little out of my comfort zone, so I took a boat on my characters who aren't from there (or rather living there already). If I am there a long while and it doesn't work out, I will return...though I view Ul'dah as a home since 1.0, I admit I am a little tired of bars events, same old fights, and the QS and sand in every place imaginable.

Having five people with the same lore appropriate name is better than having 5 Johns, 2 Marys, 3 Steves, or any other number of boring uncreative names. If that character has that name for a reason sure, but those names aren't even backed by visible lore in most cases unless they are a shortening of a more elaborate name or a reference to a real world pop culture subject (and even in those cases could still be a shortening of a longer name). In the same instance, if you have a name that would better match another race? Just make an appropriate story to help you solidify the idea. A name that fits into the world, and is creative, will always be better received than a name that matches nothing, or isn't well thought out. If you like a name of a character from another final fantasy, I say go for it, but have the appropriate foundation to work that character as someone only inspired by, and not directly coming from the other games. I guess this is a harsh stance, but I think it is better to set a standard to work from, and if you deviate and have a good foundation, go for it. I don't write characters off entirely based off names, but I admit seeing a name which plain stands out as something someone insisted on keeping before or after actually researching lore, does alert me to have caution.

I am hoping that is part of a larger image because it blatantly has like 5 female characters in the foreground and not more than 90% of a male character in it...I get it, bro-gaming, but we'd like to see those hot male bods too. I have really enjoyed this story so far, but I get this feeling that they are saving a great deal of the story meat for further patches, and I am hoping that includes fleshing out Lyse more. I hate to harp...but I enjoyed Lyse back when she was Y'da, she had clear character points and a purpose, but now she is trying to be shoved into a role she can't hope to fill at this part of the story. Give me more of her sister's story to make me feel for her, give me more of her warm-hearted and vulnerable moments, and give me some battle charged moments so I can believe she is a damn leader. Otherwise, the Steppe, my god, it is like a true ray of sunshine and fresh air when you first walk in. It just has that open and welcoming feel, being both free and at home all at once...maybe that is just me, but they are at the heart of this expansion certainly. I won't talk about Hien, this thread should probably stay PG13...

Love this idea, but would you consider opening ranks a little more and allowing for characters that relate to the group too, rather than just those strict races and types?

I agree this aspect is a bummer, we have just gone in twice and it helps when the content is a little older that we can just get through all the enemies quickly.

It doesn't feel handwavey at all to have your character be a Xaela and live in Kugane and be a samurai. A city like Kugane, one open to outside inhabitants, could be the perfect place for a Xaela to live outside the tribal life, much like the Raen chose to do. Seeing every type of race in Kugane wouldn't be unusual, so I think he would blend in pretty easily. My suggestion about the name? Keep it the way it is, and have a tribal name he maybe left behind at some point. This will help boost his backstory and give you a jumping-off point to start working around in that respect. How did he get to Kugane, what happened to his family, why did he leave his tribe? Those sorts of questions are what comes to mind when I think about it, so hopefully that can help you set a good grounded storyline for him. Unless I am totally mistaken...I think the soulstone is spoken of directly at the start of the SAM quest? He gives it to you along with the starting armor and says something about you feeling bonded with it right away, but I will have to go back and look to be sure of it. Hopefully some of this helps! (Also, something that I think helps on RPC itself, is getting a little avatar so people can recognize you around and be there to help when they see you posted, and take an interest in you, can we see maybe a pic of Kiyo?)

I thought of opening an FC or LS of dungeon raiders who are specific to dungeons accessible by the MSQ, which PoTD would be a big place to work on. It is accessible to people outside the MSQ, and only the higher floors are really getting into deep lore specific stuff. While Yoshi-P no Kami hasn't released further information, he has said there will be a new deep dungeon in the SB expansion series, so one can assume even further content will be available to a group like this...tbh, I just love doing dungeons and specifically deep dungeon, so I would love to see this content become more open to RP.

Word of advice that you didn't ask for? Don't play a Lalafell if you want romance. You're options will undoubtedly be few and far between. Post just about any other race and you will get interest, believe this from experience, RPers in this community have a VERY hard time separating reality from fantasy and seeing Lalas as less young and more dwarfish characters. It is annoying and disheartening, and it takes time to get over the fact that you have a character you love that automatically is at some disadvantage in the amount and types of RP available to them. I wish I had someone years ago to tell me this, or at least had the foresight that it would turn out this way, but I didn't and I had to find out over time that people would be nice to your face, but otherwise ignore your character even just for everyday RP if they were a lalafell. Go to a party and be the last one to get RPed with even when you try to start conversations, make contacts, try to follow up over and over and get no response, then switch to another race and have the same people magically be available and asking for RP even when you don't contact them haha. Good luck either way!

Personally I never really liked Lyse/Y'da, she only had interest for me because of her relation to a main Lalafell character, which she has proceeded to lose for the time being. As long as SE continues to be afraid of side characters accomplishing too much, we will likely continue with these disjointed feelings about "character evolution" or lack thereof. I was surprised and happy to see a lot more character participation in many parts of the MSQ though, it did give me the feeling they were there with us actually doing shit for once. That is far better than Minnie who literally showed up after battle every single time.

So here is the response to this. Since it does contain spoilers to the SB SMN quests I'm sticking it in a spoiler tag.

I was fine with us playing the "may or may not be the chosen one" sort of card, and I like Zenos, in part because I find him attractive in some way, but also because he feels like what a being confined to a normal sized physical body, should feel like if they are powerful. There seems to be a balancing act on amount of aether and strength of will/aether usage as far as primals and powerful figure goes, so his power and ability didn't really feel off to me. I will say! The fact that he felt like we were weak to start made no sense to me, seeing as he tried to attack us, and was in some way beaten back even if only for a time. If you want me to feel someone is truly more powerful than me, throw me in a scripted defeat in the DF or give the enemy some ability which I cannot withstand outrightly and give a reason, not just he hit you with a sword and you were taken down though you didn't need healing and weren't knocked out. Given his transference into Shinryu giving him some real power, that made sense to me, because bosses who are in physical bodies similar in size to the player, often feel easier to defeat and limited by the space usage they can perform, so his progression made sense, but his start didn't for me? Finally, I didn't ever like that we fought with other people and it wasn't mentioned, so I had this whole theory in my head where different realities converge into a single point of battle, combining the WoL from different unknown realities into one space which helped us defeat a common enemy. It was a little ridiculous, but not entirely implausible, but now we have "friends" so that is out the window lol. Not sure what to make of this newer mention thing that is happening, where I call on my "friends". It makes more sense to the mechanics of the game, but not sure it makes sense to the nature of the story.

First of all, the title is redundant~ Second of all, don't trust anything Unnamed Merc says, he is the title's namesake~ Third of all, Arenvald is hot, so leave him alone. Proof: Lastly, Garleans so far, have followed no obvious physical pattern besides being mostly tall. Now, Cid is a shorty, truly. Lucia, all the royals, Nero, they all use an Elezen-like form as their body model, unfortunately this is harder to see since most of the main Garlean enemies wear armor so heavy and have heads that are so unique in shape and size, that you can't assume what model they really use. I don't think they will ever make garleans a playable race, but they could maybe give us a third eye equipment if we need to infiltrate or just for fun since any halfbreed wouldn't be able to use it convincingly anyway. The lore behind Garleans is interesting, and I hope that we get more of it because every loves an underdog though the Garleans are so easy to hate this late in their story!

Momo who I have played since 1.0 and who has been a summoner in-character since it was possible to be one, just got a lore boost after years in fact. I have since changed mains because of the inherent struggle of RPing a Lalafell, buuuuut with current SMN lore being introduced, they used literally the same opening I did from previous lore, in that Momo was a survivor of the Ul'dahian army attacks against Ifrit. That was a satisfying development because even though I don't play him, there have been many naysayers over the years about IC summoners, that are no longer supported by the scarcity of information.

86s_1hpX4Yc