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This. If the problem is quest bloat and just overall game design, charging people to 'skip all that' is stupid as all hell. Doesn't even matter how expensive they are - 5, 10, 20, nobody should have to pay to get past the drawn out and monotonous parts of the game. Condense the MSQ and cut out all the filler fetch quests (this would take a crap ton of work though so that will never happen). Lock expansion content behind level and not MSQ progress. Remove MSQ requirements entirely. Or, alternatively, gate stuff behind only the x.0 MSQ. Allow people the option to do x.1 and on MSQ if they want, but a quick summary and an option to bypass slogging through 10 extra hours of drawn out story. I don't know. Something. Anything. Anything but 20$ jump potions. Agreed. I don't have a problem with people not having to do the horribly dumb and long 2.0-2.5 MSQ. It is good in parts, but those parts could be distilled down to a few hours of questing and cutscenes. Selling the jump potions is better than nothing but it's a lazy solution, and implies that the MSQ is a penance. A tax on poorer players. It's like a F2P game tactic where you have to wait 4 hours before you can do the next fun thing, but you can spend money to get it faster. If they have any respect for the design of their leveling and questing process they shouldn't treat it like this.

My only negative feeling about it, is that if it's really such an issue, just give new players the option to skip the MSQ for free. Why charge someone extra money because you're realizing there are flaws in your game design. I sort of get the logic, in that SE is missing out on a month or two of sub money when they would be leveling and doing MSQ. I still find it a little shady. Instead of saying "Oh you have to spend weeks leveling and doing quests to get to where I am so we can play together" you'll have to say "You have to spend another 50 dollars after you buy the game" It doesn't really fix the problem Yoshi-P describes, that the investment for new players can be too high, and people quit before they get to the new stuff. Now they're just replacing time with money. Basically this change only helps your rich friends play with you (unless they're giving out them free with the expansion or something).

You know, I always thought male/female Au Ra looked weird together. Femroes and Male'Ra's though? They look super great. Taken with Roland Ironheart.

Parts of the 2.0 MSQ are horribly boring and grindy and no one should be subjected to them. If Square doesn't allow people to skip to at least 3.0, then the game will die because no new players will want to do 10-20 hours of cutscenes and fetch quests after they hit 50 just so they can get to the cool new area and punch garleans/dragons.

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It's missing the ring.

Mu ha ha ha I'm going to sign up Ulrike stoneheart for "It's always pirates" For the record I'll still be on as a story consultant and assistant GM! Klyn's the boss now though!

Can second this for House of Leaves. It's...definitely something! It took some getting into but once I reached a certain point in the book I couldn't put it down. I've also heard good things/recommendations for the Mistborn series so that's on my list, same as Black Company, I think it is? But next on my 'to read' list is the Dark Tower series. I've been meaning to read house of leaves for a long time. Someday I'll have to finally take the plunge. As for Mistborn, I highly recommend. The first trilogy is good but not mind blowing (You can tell Sanderson is still figuring out the stories he wants to write) however his later and current stuff is just fantastic. A plus for him is that he very much likes to write female characters, so there are quite a few good ones in his novels.

1) My Character Evangeline firmly believes that the twelve aren't 'real' gods in the sense of powerful holy beings. She views them as not different to the Beast Tribe 'Gods', as in they are just legends, albeit legends that may have some power (As they feed off of the people like primals). 2) A lot of characters get in a lot of arguments with her (always ICly) as aestheticism is a relatively normal concept for most people OOCily. People understand the concept of not believing in a god, and I've never caught any flak for it. Evangeline however, gets preached at constantly. There are other things she believes, like that she caused the Republican 'revolution' in Ishgard, and that she is the true Empress of Garlemald. All of which tend to get treated with eye rolls. I think misinformation works best when it is involving things that involve myth, legend and hearsay in the game. Something like: "The Syndicate has 8 people in it" (It actually has 6 for the record) doesn't work that well, and causes OOC arguments. Almost any character could easily find out the number of people on the syndicate easily if desired. "The Syndicate are actually all the Sultana's Many Lovers." is better, as it's lurid and the sort of thing people would repeat and knowingly treat as fact. I think the OOC issues with 'incorrect beliefs' are less about your character being misinformed, and more of the dilemma is causes. If you have a character who is supposed to be relatively worldly and of average intelligence, yet they swear Limsa is to the east of Ul'dah... it kind of stretches plausibility. It makes it seem like suddenly basic geography is some esoteric knowledge.

Brian Sanderson writes like a crazy person, don't worry. He poops out books like... poops. I highly recommend his Mistborn Series. The newer set of tales is better, but the original is still good. The books are set about 500 years apart in the same universe, and I enjoy how the complexity of the themes increases as well technology. The original mistborn trilogy is more of a creation mythology (Literally, even) and deals with simple themes like good versus evil, the corruption of power, and balance. The new ones (set in a comparable time period to late 1800s america) deal with less epic but more nuanced issues like the meaning of justice, order, and class struggle. In any case, some company just dropped 270 million to make movies from his books. So I think everyone is going to be seeing a lot more Sanderson.

Since this is at it's core a site for people that create fiction, I thought we should have a thread for discussing it. Please bring up your favorite stories, regardless of medium. If you have a cool quote from whatever you're talking about, feel free to post! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll start off with a series I've been reading recently. https://www.goodreads.com/series/96465-the-riyria-revelations The author self published the first edition (which makes it extra neat in my book) but now it's a lot easier to get a hold of. I don't really want to spoil too much about the plot but... Things I like about it: - Magic as an "Art" rather than a science - A gritty version of a 'post-tolkien' world. Humans are very racist. - Love, Danger, and Death all taken seriously The last part that I like is the way women are treated in the work. The setting is very traditional, and the start women have very little power, all the women are side characters (Farmer's Daughters, Princesses, Prostitutes), who are constantly controlled and belittled by men in positions of power. The titular pair of male characters (Royce and Hadrian) seem like the main heroes of the story (and the first books are almost entirely from their viewpoints). However as things become chaotic and social orders of the period get blurred, and the female characters find themselves in positions to actually affect events. It's really well done in my opinion. “So,” Royce said, “you want us to escape from this prison, kidnap the king, cross the countryside with him in tow while dodging soldiers who I assume might not accept our side of the story, and go to another secret prison so that he can visit an inmate?” Arista did not appear amused. “Either that, or you can be tortured to death in four hours.” “Sounds like a really good plan to me,” Hadrian declared.“Royce?” “I like any plan where I don’t die a horrible death.”

Hello all, I'm ending/hiatusing my plot for the moment. I had high hopes for fate-14, and I wanted to make roll based rp a success. I find it demoralizing though that it seems to be used as a medium for perpetuating grudges and strife. After being pushed out of the flagship plot to introduce the 2.0 rules, I have decided that I can't invest in a system that doesn't want me. I was fine with GMing the 1.0 ruleset, but with everyone moving to 2.0, I feel like I'm an actor without a script. Someday perhaps if a final ruleset comes out for Fate14, or a new system emerges that isn't controlled by any particular player, I might restart this or a new plot. I'm going to leave the thread open for a few days, in case anyone has any questions about how any plot points should be resolved. Thank you all who participated, it was a very good learning experience for me, both in GMing and writing.

A further distillation of Portrayal can be more than just "how it is presented." It can also be considered to be the actual "thing" that is handed to you; an example is whether the thing given to you is a movie, sculpture, etcetera. Some also consider it to be "the work as a whole," which would fall roughly into line with what I gave you (presentation). I personally am not a fan of the "overall" line of thinking, because it leaves us without terminology we may use to discuss individual pieces of something as complex as a movie or a videogame. None of these terms are solidly defined, because artists like to argue and nothing in art is empirical. The more common terms I've seen for these are "content," "style," and "form," so a search for those may give you more information, though most of that refers to Visual Arts instead of actual entertainment media. Using that definition, I feel like it's not very useful in the terms of this discussion. Unless I'm misunderstanding your terms, all RP would have the same form (Text written in the first person) aside from a few special cases (exposition, GMing, IC songs). It only seems to differ in content and style.

This is a while back, but I actually like SE's lore in several key aspects. They have structured the game in certain ways that make players RPing seem compatible with the world. Yes, there are lots of issues with you being the Warrior of Light, and the only WHM, BLM, etc. However I think they really deserve a hand for incorporating things that normally only exist as game elements, and incorporating them into the lore. I will use WoW and The Old Republic as examples, as they're the MMO's I'm most familiar with as examples. In those games 'Adventurers' are not a part of the world. You as the player are an adventurer, and you go on quests to advance the purposes of your faction. There is no indication that adventurers are widespread, that they are regulated or have any organization. There is no indication of where these adventurers live, how they're supplied, or how they're recruited and trained. There is no indication of what these adventurer's do when they're not saving the world, and there is also no indication of how they slot into the governments and militaries of the land. I understand that the new expansions for WoW have garrisons, and you as the character taking part in Government affairs, but it's implied that your position is a unique one. In FFXIV we have - A fully fleshed out organization for recruiting and employing adventurers - Explanation of why these adventurers exist, and how they integrate with existing organizations - An IC system of dispatching adventurers and tasks both mundane and extraordinary, such that the existence of adventurers can be seen as a logical need of their society. - A support network of professions designed to support adventurers, and regulated Leves for doing so - The presence of player organizations fully explained by the lore, and their presence explained and encouraged by governments. I feel like I already went on, but while on the more mystical side FFXIV's lore can be kind of dumb at times, I feel like there are so many good things about it. It's a world that normalizes adventurers, that makes them part of the world as opposed to earth shattering beings that go out and murder gods for fun. TLDR: I like this game's lore, it allows for RP that makes sense in the context of the world.

I just figured out why SE pegged the current number at 10 dragoons. That's enough for a 5v5 basketball match.

Is there a problem if they do? Your stance on all this is fairly clear and you've done little more than attack the people who you disagree with, so I'm not gonna bother explaining why it could pose a problem down the road. =P I'm honestly curious what problem it will cause. People always use general language, like they're speaking for a whole group, but in reality they're just speaking their personal opinion. Will it cause an issue for you? How would you react to a player who still says they're a dragoon, or a grandmaster monk? Depending on the character I'm playing, as others have said in the thread, I'll either assume their character is lying, drunk or crazy. Understandable, but how is that a Problem? Like, both of you would interact, and you'd go on your ways. I think most people would be ok with that outcome, and they're willing to accept it. For example, my character claims often and loudly she's the Empress of Garlemald. Everyone smiles and nods and scoots away when she does. I would get your concern if people were coming on here complaining about how no one accepts their Dragoon RP, but until then your concern seems a bit premature? There are already IC ways of dealing with lore you don't agree with, and you gave a good example of one.

Is there a problem if they do? I'm honestly curious what problem it will cause. People always use general language, like they're speaking for a whole group, but in reality they're just speaking their personal opinion. Will it cause an issue for you? How would you react to a player who still says they're a dragoon, or a grandmaster monk? EX: "People might not RP with you." usually translates to "I won't RP with you." *Mod edit happened to aid with thread cleanup.

Is there a problem if they do?

I've said this before, but lore is a tool to improve RP, not stifle it. No one has to retcon anything lol, if there are less dragoons that just gives you an excuse to write a cool reason why your dragoon exists. Use the lore book to open new doors, not close them.

The only reason people ever have for saying things like "You can't be a Dragoon" is because Dragoons are cool and they fight dragons and they're in the trailer for Heavensward and Estinien is hot and everyone wants to be a dragoon. Other people are Dragoons and they have a lot of fun being dragoons but somehow that is NOT OK, because it makes your adventurer feel less cool. "It's not that my character isn't strong/cool/interesting enough it's that they're SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES." And now everyone is like AH HA. I knew it! There aren't that many dragoons!!!! You're not allowed to play what you want! You have to RP like I do! Everything has to be Generic! SEE THE LORE BOOK SAYS RIGHT THERE, ALL YOU DRAGOONS HAVE BEEN DOING IT WRONG. These are the same people who will say the same things once Stormblood comes out and it turns out there are only like 5 monks or something.

Or at least allege to. Lol I agree, no one follows the lore. Every RP character is a form of lore breaking. Or show me in the lorebook where it has your character in there.