Heya! So I'm thiiiiis close to getting FFXIV, but I've gotta find the right place to go before I join.
I'm a veteran of about seven thousand MMORPGs, and if those have taught me anything, it's that I just can't stick to something unless I seek out the RP server. This time though, there are two of them!
I know myself pretty well- despite my pretty extensive experience with roleplaying, I will probably ALWAYS be a Light RPer. By far my favorite bits of RPing are bonding with others while adventuring, trading cheesy quips and snide jabs and accidentally inflicting character development upon each other. Running into people unexpectedly is what makes things worthwhile for me- I'm much more likely to dive into a goofy interaction on the street than a conversation in the tavern or a sermon in the park. I'm an explorer, a goofball, and the kind of person who feels warm and fuzzy inside when I get distracted by someone roleplaying a street performer while I'm on my way from A to B.
So what am I looking for in a server?
- A healthy enough RP community that there ARE little things going on in the street, or enough general people hanging around the server that I can start them on my own.
- A healthy enough playing-the-game community that, if I'm out exploring the world, I might run into other people! Otherwise it's awfully lonely out there.
I'm sorta leaning toward Balmung, but that big ole (LEGACY) tag kind of scares me. Reminds me of trying to explore on a server where everyone is at max level and has been doing scheduled events for so long that it's the only thing anyone participates in. That's happened a lot.
...
At the risk of repeating myself, I'm going to keep typing!
I don't generally bother with a character's detailed history. I'm more concerned with who a character IS than what they've done. As I play a character, I get a more detailed idea of who they are, and weave together their background from analyzing how I play them and why they would act that way, with a healthy measure of turning jokes or ideas others have given me about my own character into canon past events. It's much more fun to figure out a backstory that way, I think!
Also I'd like to reiterate how much I love ending up in a group who appreciates the art of spouting cheesy quips at monsters or big bad bosses before or after combat. There are so many giggles to be had!
(If you've guessed by now that my favorite game I've ever RPed in was City of Heroes, give yourself a Hami-O)
I'm a big advocate of doing roleplaying in /say if at all possible. It's a noble deed to act in a way that mildly amuses strangers around you. Putting an even slightly memorable event into someone's otherwise dreary and boring day makes the world more fun to live in. This applies to meatspace too! If I can make someone say "I don't understand why those grown-ass women were playing Go Fish in the elevator" when they get home instead of "Welp, another day of work done" then my life is a success.
But enough about me! Which server should I choose? Should I just go with my gut and buy the game and pick Balmung already or what?
EDIT: A surefire way for me to think of more things to write is to submit a post. I forgot to mention that it's a really big plus if a server has lots of Australians or just late-nighters. The vast majority of time where I'm free to actually focus on one thing is during the night. Past 10PM Pacific, to be precise
I'm here! It's just past dusk, and I can hear some nice music off in the distance. It's actually pretty soothing! I'm not used to music that isn't just a bunch of loud honking. I thought Ul'dah was supposed to be a super-busy place though... maybe all those travelers I met were just exaggerating. --- Everyone was indoors. I found the Adventurer's Guild, and it was stuffed full of people plotting, having serious discussions, having serious drinkings, and even people who were enjoying themselves! It was really stuffy. The leader seemed to be a Lalafell called Momodi, and as soon as she gave me some ideas for things to do, I got out of there to someplace with more air. I might as well look around the place, I'm way too excited to sleep! Maybe I can find out where that nice music is coming from. --- Who BUILT this place? When I first saw the walls, I was too shocked to think about it, but.. this is impossible! How do you stack blocks that high?! How do you put together all these domes and things that look so smooth and nice? There's no way anyone could do that! And some of it just doesn't make any sense at all! I found a few of these crazy water pits that are so deep that I can't even tell how far down they go. They can't just be for decoration! All of the other decorations aren't just a giant pit for people to fall into! Except the coliseum, but at least that one you can get out of from the bottom. I tried asking a few people about the waterpits, but they just rolled their eyes at me and kept going with what they were doing. I guess I'll have to figure it out myself. Are there swordsmiths around here? Thinking about it now, maybe these deep waterpits are for cooling off twenty-foot-long swords! That makes a lot of sense, actually. I wonder who made them, and what they were for? ((Edited because I was like "Hey time to write more entries" and noticed imageshack removed the picture))