Flickering Ember

I agree. Votes should be hidden. Entries being on separate pages also are a bad idea. (People not looking beyond page, last vote counting which also biases towards the latter pages)

This is the one I voted for. Messy long hair? Yes, please! There is a dearth of long, but simple hairs.

I voted for entry #4 (female). As a female roe, I only have access to a couple of long hair styles which are both really weird looking. For multi-racial female hair, for long hairs the only ones available are the shoulder length hair with the braid in the back or the bushy long hair with the super feminine bangs. I guess I was hoping for some plain, long hair for females since there don't seem to be any? At least any that I can select for female roe. The only ones available have some sort of braid, clip, accessory, or bangs. And while entry #4 also has bangs, I like it for being a slightly messy style.

This. Yes. PSA for everyone. You can only vote on ONE hairstyle, which is the last one you voted for. Only the last vote will count. http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/4fd0d26561ee75f0c4987519d97a8ecee02a43ce

Thinking that you have to RP the genders in a certain way is one of the most limiting things you can do for your character. I recommend reading and following Oli!'s advice on page 2. It is quite invaluable. I recommend creating your character concept first and instead of, as others have said, trying to make something that feels "Au Ra-like" or "a good female character." Our characters are not defined by their race or gender. They are definitely attributes that might influence our characters' lives but they are not the totality of someone's entire person. Additionally the only thing that qualifies a female character as a 'good female character' is that she is written in a way that makes her a person. People aren't walking stereotypes. Thinking that either gender has to be written with certain qualities is both unfortunate and may lead you to dislike that character. For example, if you have this impression that your female character has to have this nurturing, mama bear like side to her that you would never give any of your male characters, not because you dislike it but because it's just 'meh' then DON'T. Which it sounds like you are suffering a serious case of 'meh' as opposed to outright dislike. You may want to completely re-write the character. I would. To me, a lack of interest in a character from 'blahness' is even more dangerous than simply hating your character. I'd scrub that character clean and start fresh, but that's just me. I recommend the concept I mentioned earlier not being based around race, appearance, or backstory. Make it about actions, accomplishments, and personality instead. Examples include: Rich, vain noble who constantly wants to help out the poor but comes off as accidentally insensitive instead. Traditional tribesperson who is resistant to change and believes everything has to be a 'certain way.' A complete loner with no people skills who comes off as a bit too blunt but is earnestly trying to fit in despite it all. A dependent and conformist who wants to please people and needs to be directed by others but is desperately trying to break out of this forumla to follow their own path. So, as you can see, these examples are about how a character acts. They don't tell us anything about gender and race and very little about their background. But with these concepts, we know the type of character we are playing and how they will interact with other characters. If our concept was something like "A roegadyn raised by lalafells" then that is a background concept only and doesn't tell us anything about the actual character. If this is a RPer's first and only concept of their character then perhaps they are doomed to a path of 'blah' RP because it focuses on backstory rather than who the character actually is. Well, I mean, again, to emphasize what I said above...back story is not that important. They are incredibly fun to write and a backstory definitely does shape a character's opinions and identity. But you are not RPing out your character's backstory. You are RPing your character who they are in the present and what is to come. Over focusing on backstory is a common mistake and something that even the experienced roleplayer might be too tempted into doing. I like to come up with a basic backstory at character creation and expand later. I find it can be more important to establish a character's goals, hobbies, talents, fears, strengths, weaknesses, quirks. etc. Anyway, I have to disagree with the focus on lore as well. I don't really think Au Ra have much less than other races. Though I do recognize some races have more than others. I play a Hellsguard for example, and just like Au Ra, we really can't visit our race's homeland. Our characters migrated down from Abalathia's Spine and we know very little about actual Hellsguard culture. In my opinion, FFXIV all around has very limited racial lore and it's just one of those things we as roleplayers have to make do with. We tend to guess and I think that's okay if we do. Races don't have a hive mind. A race's culture can be broken down into several, much smaller ones.

I agree with you, Warren, about the importance of community. Playing WoW since vanilla, it was very sad to see its community slowly wither away as time went on. I dunno if the MSQ really contributes that much to the community though. I can't say I've ever found myself sitting in a random, discussing the MSQ. I think getting rid of gated story content does the opposite for the community by allowing more people to play. The more hoops people have to jump through to get to a certain point, the less people there will inevitably be. Plus, I don't think that Pokemon analogy works very well. MMOs aren't supposed to be like single player games. You can raid if you want, or if you don't want to raid you can pvp, don't want to pvp? go crafting, don't want to do any of those things? focus on the story content, RP, whatever.

It's easy to get this impression if you're not familiar with Japanese culture/history but I suspect that Raen are pretty much like the Eorzean samurai.

I was going to post this earlier but got distracted with making some other points. Fortunately some of the other members brought it up. If you read the source from where this was addressed carefully then it sounds pretty clear that the story will be a continuation of the story we already have, rather than being something completely 100% new with each expansion. They talk about adding an in game summary people can read if they don't want to do the old MSQs so it seems likely that the story will be created the same, just with the added addition to read cliff notes.

The scale quality sounds about right for a deterrent. I don't personally mind and would have been happy to play one if it weren't for some unfortunate design decisions. (Au Ra not looking like they do in the concept art could probably be summed up for a reason I skipped them) The scales don't really look like scales.

I stopped playing monk a bit ago but very nice to see the buff in duration for GL. Most excited about the TP change and a little bit about AST. I don't play AST or healers currently but it will be nice to see an increase in healer diversity.

Content in WoW was not typically gated, no. You had to be 58 to zone in to BC content but you could just have a warlock friend summon you if you really wanted. When they redid the old world in Cataclysm all the side quests required you to progress linearly to unlock new quests in that zone but you could just go to a different zone instead and do quests there.

These are my thoughts too. It's really hard to correct or notice that something is grammatically incorrect if you can't look at your full post. Because of this, like Virara pointed out, it is very easy for me to write something that comes off as redundant. Everyone has different things they value in RP but for me I care more about pace. If I don't make a timely post then the other RPer(s) is having to wait longer. Whenever I do have to go back and fix or reword something, it's usually an extra 30 seconds at least. A quick flow in RP helps keeps it energized and lively. There's a delicate balance between substantial posts and timely ones. I try to keep my RP responses in one on one / small group RP to 3 minutes tops. If a grammar error is the difference between 3 min or 3 min 30 s I will choose a grammar error. I have ignored typos multiple times in order to keep the flow of RP going rather than going back and obsessing. I type colloquially as well so, I'm usually happy if A. I can understand what is written B. There is capitalization. C. Punctuation.

Not sure, but if we judge feedback by the official forums, gamers today certainly whine about things much more than in previous years. Perhaps due to how saturated in social media the average person on the internet is. The only thing I'm taking away from this off topic line of discussion is how people really seem to hate change. But yeah, this is really off topic. The good ol' days of gaming are not as good as people think. Unless we're talking about time periods filled with war, sickness, and depression, there aren't really any "good ol' days." Time periods are just good and bad in different ways. I don't see how it would detract from one's fun for others to be able to ignore old content. They get to do their own thing, you get to do your own thing. Maybe that whining was warranted, huh?

Bronze Lake Culinarian's Guild/Bismark Costa Del Sol

I visit the official Final Fantasy forums too and I've seen a lot of defense towards needing ARR content finished to get to HW. I have to say, I strongly disagree with having this gated content and do not understand why fans are defending SE's decision on this. Most of the justification I have seen is that FFXIV is a story heavy game. Here's where my opinion becomes an unpopular one though. Not everyone cares about the story. There's plenty to do and enjoy without any of the story in this game. So I would have to disagree with it being "story-centric." TOR is what I would call a "story-centric" MMO. I really could not stand ANY of the story pre-2.1. I do quite like 2.1-2.55 and 3.0 MSQ but I would not call it 'amazing.' A serious detractor for me personally is that the Scions are the main characters of the story and I find them to be extremely unlikeable. (Here's hoping we get some major development for ALL the scions, much like Alphinaud) But mostly, I don't see what groaning about people complaining about the gated content accomplishes. (not actually specifically mentioning you two here, but this has been an extremely common sentiment in general ever since HW launched) The important thing is that with the gated content, Heavensward is not accessible. The less something is accessible, the less people will be able to achieve this content. Bioware is known and beloved for its story-focused RPGs but even its story-centric content is accessible. Its Mass Effect and Dragon Ages are able to be jumped into at any installment. Even the Dragon Age: Origins expansion can be played as a stand alone campaign. Bioware does this because if they didn't, they would lose money. Similarly, requiring 2.55 for 3.0 content (All content I might add, not just story content) was not a wise move. They without a doubt lost money over this decision. These companies have lots and lots of statistics at their disposal. I believe Bioware did research that showed only a small fraction of the owners of one of their games had actually beaten it. Even though the game had sold well. A lot of players just want to start fresh too. It doesn't mean that they aren't interested in the story but they don't want to have to do old content in order to do that. While it wouldn't stop me from playing the game if I was in their shoes, it can get seriously lonely when all your friends have moved on without you and you're still stuck on the last expansion's content. TL;DR Stop defending gated content. It does not help SE make money; it does the opposite. I know I'd like for them to be more successful so they can make more content.

I'm interested mostly because it will be more like RTS battles than a pokemon battle.

Hmm. I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. Is the point to draw attention to folks who roleplay rogues/ninjas so that they might consider emotiong their battles differently? It seems we all agree that it often comes down to personal preference too. Personally, I tend to prefer a practical approach to combat. I know I can't really be as realistic as I can be but I will try to be as realistic in a way that fits a fantasy setting. (Doesn't really say much but hey) I don't really think the dancing knife style works for someone like Ember, who is 242 pounds and nearly 7 and a half feet all. So, my impression is that the very acrobatic fighting style usually belongs to someone who is small and lithe. Mostly though, I'm thinking of this: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SheFu and this : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaifFu So I tend to view this as a way writers and roleplayers make a female physical combatant while still keeping her traditionally feminine, in a sense. As the combat style we are talking about involves dancing and not standing toe to toe to someone who might be twice your size. In general though, it's pretty easy to RP a rogue/ninja this way when most of their combat animations ARE portrayed this way. Most RPers I have ever known don't stray too far from how a class is portrayed and will copy paste abilities you use in game to their own RP.

I've had a different experience. I have not only not been able to RP with Au Ra but I never see any Au Ra roleplayers around. For example, at Clio's hot spring event I only saw one Au Ra there the entire time I was there and there were at least 30 people there. On the other hand, I've been using the DF a lot as a tank and for leveling some alt classes. I see Au Ra constantly and usually have at least one in my group.

He was saying child-miqo'te aren't going to happen as a playable race because accusations of pedophilia could lead to FFXIV being shut down. It is admittedly weird that folks apparently have been asking to be able to play as children to begin with...? Though the developer positive response made me also consider that we could get an adult version of this child-miqo'te as a lalafell-esque new race. Perhaps they are looking to add Viera but add them as tiny lalafell like creatures instead of miqo'te clones but with rabbit ears.

This. If you understood what they wrote, how in the world does it matter? There's no need to correct someone other than some vague satisfaction that you caught an error they didn't. Readability I do think is important too though. Like Septha said, break up your sentences. That's it though. The only time I feel it is appropriate is if that RPer is looking for feedback.

This may as well be my confession. I do internal monologuing. However, I also have zero shame for it. Here's the honest truth: I am not a good writer. Actually, I very rarely do writing prompts and even more rarely do I write up short stories for my characters. I do like reading people's stories but I don't do it as often as I could. I'm not really here to read and write stories, though. I'm not an English major, I don't write fanfiction, and I'm pretty sure my grasp on essay-perfect English is deteriorating as I get older. I see RP as a lot different than writing a story. It is a "story" in a sense, but I see it more as getting to participate in a living world. What does this have to do with internal monologuing? Well, my personal belief that internal monologuing can be the result of 'eh' writing skill. Though, it's also going to dip into time restrictions as well. I am not going to sit there for several minutes, trying to describe perfectly what my character's facial expressions are. Not at all, I am going to bluntly state what my character is feeling so you can get a rough idea what their expression looks like so our RP doesn't take longer to get through. (I know I personally don't have all the time in the world) Though, with body language being much more of human communication than words, a lot of what you should be seeing is indescribable. I put a lot of importance on facial expressions because 1. I don't think RPers focus on the non-verbal aspects of characters enough and 2. A lot of communication from humans lies in their reactions, rather than their words. TL;DR If I am internal monologuing, it's because I want you to imagine that 'internal monologue' as a facial expression. I always try to give others something more substantial to work off of too, as I can also see the frustration of not getting enough to react off of. (Confession turned into ranting a little bit but eh. You don't have to like it but those are my reasons!)

Honestly, I have never experienced this. I'm either in love with my character or I'm very 'meh' towards them. There is no in between for me. I usually know pretty early on (about two weeks after creation) and there's only one character I've salvaged from 'meh' status. I have never lost interest in a character I loved. More often than not, their stories end before I want them to. The thing is, I am able to keep interest with a single character for years in MMOs because I let my characters' stories evolve over time. A lot of that is dependent upon the people I RP with too rather than personal quests, so there is always something new to RP because there are always new people to RP with. So, for me personally, I've found my RP works best if I give each of my characters good reasons to like and approach people. They're not all affectionate or sociable but other people are important enough to where their sense of value and self worth is somehow entangled with the people around them. Even if the story is 100% focused on another character, I can give my characters enough quirks, fears, flaws, strengths, likes, dislikes, etc. to make any story relatable to them. So, if my character's story is always evolving then I will never get bored of them. I've made more "dud" characters than ones that are "beloved" though. They might not possess the qualities of the above paragraph. I know quickly enough if these characters are duds and I will either make futile efforts to salvage them (again, was only ever able to salvage one "dud" character) or I will force myself to move on.

It does feel like RP is still recovering. I know Aeon has been going through the same thing, though RP's been picking up a little bit and we are starting to have RP events again. I'm not surprised it's taken a while for RP to recover, considering that this has happened eith every expansion I got to participate in with WoW. I can really say that if the question is in regards to non-FC friends, I don't favor my FC over non-FC friends. However, I may RP with certain people more during a specific time period due to schedules meshing up more or the current storyline of RP encouraging it. I know for me if I haven't talked to someone in a while, I get shy and awkward, and it gets harder to start something up again because I'm a derp.

Now to add to my previous post which didn't really give my OOC thoughts: I'm not a fan of IC teleportation. Fortunately, FFXIV has a lot more restrictions to work with and make good use of than something like, say, GW2? It can be pretty easy to think up reasons for why your character might not use teleportation. Though it can still feel weird in certain scenes. I think in terms of speaking things like 'Dungeon escapes' and 'prison escapes' it can feel like a bit of a disappointment. All of the fun of those scenarios is watching how a character can get out of them. I agree that teleportation is a large part of the world that is very much canon, but I wonder how we can explore such scenarios without it? I wonder if for example, if there are limits with teleportation that would prevent one from teleporting during a combat? Does it work in stressful scenarios? What if your hands are bound--could you still teleport?

Ember, as she is currently, is a Hellsguard roegadyn who grew up a feral child in the wilds of Thanalan. A feral child in this case being, growing up alone in the wilderness with no family or town to protect her or teach her. Therefore, she's ignorant to society and did not actually learn to speak until somewhat recently. Taking backstory away, Ember would have grown up with her biological parents and would have lived the life of a normal girl. Her parents were adventurers and thus she would have been able to have an education and would have lived in comfort. Her personality would be the same in many regards. She'd still be affectionate and loving. She'd be considerably less aggressive in dire situations and would probably fancy magic over physical fighting. I imagine she'd have different quirks to her than she does now, seeing as how many of them have been brought about by her lifestyle. More gentle, less wild. Soft-spoken, yet outgoing. Depending on how far back we rewind backstories, she might even be able to see.