Oli!

Yeah, I thought about that side of it, but generally when it comes to that sort of thing, the counter-argument would be pointing to all the games that buckle down and do that anyway. Which are quite numerous, really. Add into that fact that there are increasing numbers of dev-tools that are capable of reformatting geometry based on character models (yes, those exist), and the technical limitations shrink as well. I think it's more of an aesthetic choice as opposed to a technical design one. No game comes to mind that had beast races that didn't have them from the start. TESO for example had the Khajit and Argonian from the start, EQ same deal, WoW as well. All of these games had the luxury of starting development for armor with the idea that they needed to develop different sets of gear for different body types and what have you. It is a lot different when you take a game where all races use the same exact models and then add in a race that now uses an entirely different model, because you have to then spend extra man hours to redesign old gear sets. While it's likely part of the decision is aesthetics like you said, I think the root of the decision and ultimately the main reason is technology and time required. WoW's Worgen had body structures that were vastly different from anything else that was playable / wore a lot of armor at the time. That definitely counts as something that was added since the start of the game, and a similar argument could be made for the Pandaren. In a similar vein, EQ had the Froglok, which despite existing earlier on, only became playable (and thus required lots of armor to be made and reformatted for them) after a patch later on in the game's life. Although one could still make the argument that these games had the general idea that there might be more beast races, I think that that pre-planning is easily balanced by the fact that a lot of the tools that could be used to smooth the process along did not exist, and everything had to be done manually anyway.

Yeah, I thought about that side of it, but generally when it comes to that sort of thing, the counter-argument would be pointing to all the games that buckle down and do that anyway. Which are quite numerous, really. Add into that fact that there are increasing numbers of dev-tools that are capable of reformatting geometry based on character models (yes, those exist), and the technical limitations shrink as well. I think it's more of an aesthetic choice as opposed to a technical design one.

SAMURAI FOOOOOOOOOOL Miqo'te have tails too, that's totally why I didn't mention that! Also, scales more like stupid

Oliwat has the need the need for speed to talk to an engineer about a special part he needs for a thing. For Science.

Haven't seen a discussion thread on this yet, so here we go. I dunno guys, personally I'm pretty disappointed. Looks like more of the same to me. I'll probably make one anyway because HEEEEEY New Race Why Not, but I don't know if I'm really feeling them, design-wise. Maybe their lore will make up for it, maybe it won't. I know, I know. I shouldn't have come to Final Fantasy expecting playable beastly-looking beast races. But still, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want a dragon race to look a little more menacing and dragon-y. What I'm seeing right now just seem to be miqo'te women and Elezen males with horns instead of weird ears. Mmmmeh. lalafellmasterrace Post your thoughts.

HELLO YES THIS IS OLIWAT IS THIS THE GRIEVANCE DEPARTMENT I WOULD LIKE TO FILE A FORMAL COMPLAINT AGAINST THIS MAN THANK YOU

Yeah sure whaaaaatever. Let's see them do that faster than a trigger pull. GO SCIENCE!

What if we got a bunch of future Machinist characters to stage a Strategic Repurposing of some Garlean tech and started our own Ironworks? Might be cool.

Maybe some elaboration on the issue could help a bit? I'd love to try and fix problems, and I'm sure others would too, but I personally don't know what's going on.

Oli was always meant to be a gun-wizard, so this is 95% perfect. My Roegadyn was supposed to be a Dark Knight for a long while too, so this is equally great. Astrologian, meh. Astronomy is for poops.

We've pretty much shifted from plots to Events In General, so even little things like that are Merri welcome. HAAAAAAA I AM THE BEST AT PUNS

...we need disposable criminals and victims to stage things like this during RP primetimes. It might be a lot of fun to feel like the cop-types are actually copping. It's a lot to ask, though. BRASS BLADES BRASS BLADES WHAT'CHA GONNA DO WHAT'CHA GONNA DO WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU "Yeah we've got a stolen 'Bo heading northbound on the R-A Sunway, Need immediate airship support." Black and white Chocobos roll up next to the guy "PULL OVER! I REPEAT! PULL! OVER!" "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, BRASSIE!"

One of the things that I wanted to do before I left the game for a while was a little experiment called the Weekly Excursion! (yes, with the exclamation point), which basically amounted to hiking / exploration trips that turned into horrible misadventures, like getting captured by Garleans or getting stuck in a cave with ogres. Never actually happened, but there's another recurring-thing idea.

So, recently it seems that there's been a growing sentiment among many that is something along the lines of "I want to do a thing, but there are no people for me to do it with / no outlet for me to do it in / I don't know what I want to do." Some say that this is because lots of RP is closed off and happens between friends and guild members, while others say that people simply need to be more proactive. Regardless of your stance on the matter, I think that there's a decent short-term way of fixing this. Namely, more things to do. So, theoretically, if we set up a little thing that lots of people could have access to, what would people want from it? If lack of RP is a problem that is truly bothering a lot of people, I invite all that wish to to contribute ideas that might lead to some interesting things to do. However, I'd also like to lay down some simple ground-rules: 1.) No super-huge world-changing events. Your idea for Killing Literally Everyone in Ul'dah or reducing the Shroud to a post-apocalyptic wasteland might be cool, but that sort of thing is not for everyone. Some people like to keep their daily activities more or less in line with what the game presents for us, so something so grand that it would have its own chapter in a history book probably wouldn't belong here. 2.) Try and keep it (somewhat) PG. It might be a good plot, but if your idea involves violence, gore and mindscrewing that's so excessive it would make Del Toro and Tarantino throw up all over themselves, or contains something similarly explicit, this probably isn't the place for it either. Thoughts ideas? Throw them at each other!

Wow guys :U Personally I think they're just frustrated. I for one have been in the "I want to do things, and I have the will to do things, but I have literally no idea where to start right now" position. It's not always due to laziness or shyness or inaction that people are unable to join things, there's just a literal flurry that's moving too fast to jump into, and no one is slowing down. It can be super overwhelming at times. There's also the fact that being an unknown face or roleplaying as a less noticeable group sometimes also makes things harder ('cause mummy told me not to talk to STRANGERS). That's happened to me as well. All that said, I emphasize. Even if you're totally trying to get some RP literally all the time, sometimes things just don't work. It's frustrating. I think one thing that could help is making a thread and calling people who are currently running plots to come and see if they have anything that you could jump into (a My Character For Hire sort-of thread).

I'm going to make a macro that makes a witty thing happen every time I post on the boards. Just for you. Come at me broooooo

I'm also down! Poke Adalhaid Rask if you see her!

I have a miqo'te I rarely play (UGH cat people) that is a normal lancer. More of a staff-fighter ICly, really, because she draws a bit from Sun Wukong to begin with.

This is what I'm getting at, here. Could you? Yes. Should you? Questionable. Thaumaturges dropping meteors is actually in the game. That doesn't mean that it's something that a lot of people like to see. Since we don't have any lore that says yes or no, it's less about whether or not it's doable, and more about whether it should be done. Meteors? So doable it's a move in the game. But people don't think it's a good thing to do. Same thing here, at least to me. Plausible? Yes. But having super sharp tails that can impale people and cut through armor probably isn't a good move. Sure, you could break the tails, but even if I mentioned you could dodor the meteor, that still probably wouldn't change many minds on that skill's application.

Here's my opinion. Is it over the top? Yes. Should you turn it down? Also yes. I haven't come across a lot of Lore on Ceruleum other than it crystallizes in response to aether and is pretty much just Petrol, so I'm not the person to talk to for Lore Holes. Regardless, I'm one of the people that prefers the "you could, but sometimes you shouldn't" line of thinking. As exemplified by the previous posts, although a thaumaturge could technically call down fireballs of death from the sky, actually doing it is somewhat ridiculous and frowned upon. You don't need a super crazy power to tell a tale of internal struggle. To address the idea of other people having more over the top powers, I would say that thinking along the "everyone's doing it!" path just leads to a world where everyone is a god and (according to my personal viewpoint) everything is awful. Yes, there's always the "it's your RP, do what you want" camp, and the very nature of that thought makes it unassailable without seeming like a huge elitist or jerk or whatever else. But I feel it needs reminding that RP is a collaborative activity. You can do whatever you want, but there are other people sharing the space, too. If you're throwing your power around, even if it's only against NPCs, you could be affecting others in a way that they don't want to be effected.

It's more of a conceptual argument that is completely separate from whether or not you're using it against other people, really.

This seems like the sort of thing that has the potential to turn into one of those Topics of DOOOOOOOM, so as a result this might turn away from the answers that you want and more towards a debate on the merits of this sort of thing. Nevertheless, I'll format my thoughts over some breakfast and post here when I have time to.

That would probably be grounds for Eternal Banification, especially considering the Roll Is God. People that enter the regular Grindstone enter with the knowledge that this is so, and it would be the same here as well.

but muh goldsink

Oli/Jajara/Chachan for Tiny Triple Threat? All must submit. Bow before the popotoes. This makes me want to get a Lalafell Adventuring Brigade going. They'd be the best and shortest Light Party ever.