Mercurias

I think Gunblades are quite possibly the dumbest thing ever. "In Final Fantasy VIII all forms of gunblade consist of a sword blade with a gun action built into the hilt, the barrel running inside the length of the blade. They are mostly used like normal swords, but triggering a round sends a shock wave through the blade as the weapon passes through an opponent to boost damage." - From this link on the FF Wiki concerning Gunblades. Theoretically possible IC, but you're basically making an extremely awkward weapon with a limited number of "shock waves" unless you've got the unlimited ammo cheat on. Admittedly, there are a number of guns with blades on them which would function as ranged weapons, but if you want to primarily fight at ranged, then you could just have a gun with a bayonet on it. If you really, truly, and absolutely want a gunblade, then it's possible in lore. I just don't know why you'd want to edgelord like that.

Barney is extremely easy to pick on and never takes offense.

M'sato: "Shut up and do something!" Solomon: "Non-alcoholic." Soren: "My problems are more important because x."

M'sato was just...BAD at Thaumaturgy. After a full year of study, the best he managed was to be able to use a bone charm to light candles and make ice cubes.

Soren Walker is an airship pilot who has gone through most of an apprenticeship as an airship engineer before he was conscripted. These days he enjoys to tinker. His specialties are mechanical and chemical engineering. He likes to make things with moving parts and things that go boom. I would describe Soren as having more practical knowledge than higher level theory. He can build some simple things on his own, but he shines when it comes to improvising repairs or 'just-crazy-enough-to-work' modifications on the fly. Sometimes literally.

*cracks fingers* Now I'm not the lore expert that some of our friends here on the board are, but I'm not...Horrible. Here are the things I see which could step in your way: First, you say that your blue mage concept would be able to read the aetheric 'waves' caused by aether-based skills utilized by other players and enemies. Functionally, even if you absolutely do not mean it that way, what you're saying is that any skill used by anyone that utilizes aether (rather than a biological component like, say, a barbed tail or breathing acid) is within the bounds of your character's ability to learn, right? Now the only issue with that is it essentially leaves your character with an extremely perceptive form of magesight, which we've seen in multiple points of the game to be a thing (There are game instances involving both Conjurers in Gridania reading auras to discern a person's identity and the Thaumaturges in the THM questline referencing the use of an 'Inner eye" to see a person's progress). I say this because your character is able to read the 'waves' of the skills being used, like the frequency of the radio. And y'know what? On its own, that's actually pretty cool. Your character might not be a godling, but she can sense when someone is using some kind of magic nearby and exactly what kind. I can dig that. My main issue is the thought that she can, after 'reading' these skills, then duplicate them so easily. It's been on record that magic takes time, training, and dedication to learn, and by seeing HOW a person performs a spell, she would have to reproduce the same methods used by its caster, or create a hybridized version of the spell with her own aether. In other words, she could KNOW that someone is casting Fire III, but even if she knows exactly how it's done, it's going to take time and practice with Thaumaturgy in order to be able to cast it herself. In FFXI, in order to become a blue mage, one was forced into an alchemical transfusion in order to use blue magic. This rendered a person able to use the skills of beasts by literally binding the souls of the slain monsters to the blue mage, but it came at a cost: No blue mage ever lived to die of old age due to the constant pain and horrible damage that blue magic incurs upon the body, and often blue mages would be consumed by the souls of the monsters they've slain and become monsters called Soulflayers. In other words, Blue Mages were very powerful, but they were also no longer human and risked transforming into a monster in full with every breath they take after their transformation. Personally, I like the idea of going further into the concept of being a magical tuning fork or radar over blue magic because I think it would be more lore-friendly and, honestly, a little more fun to roleplay. I'm not you, however, and I can only give you the information and opinions I have. I hope it's of some use. Another neat note that I hadn't known, and a little off topic, the head of the Immortals (the organization of Blue Mages serving the empire of Aht Urhgan, where the school of magic originated), was named Raubahn.

If you want something of a foil to Alueaux's dedicated, "Defend home and hearth" personality, you may have a fun time gloriously disagreeing with Soren sometime. Soren's an airship pilot and former conscript who was allowed to go home after he was lamed in the war. Soren has...Ideas about what is and is not correct about how his homeland is run. It's one of the few things that actually riles him up.

Typically, I start walkup roleplay by politely asking in tells whether the player is receptive to a walkup, since they could well be busy, OOC, or only wanting to talk to/ERP with (baby I ain't judgin') their friends. This also lets the person have a chance to get prepped (if needed) to get IC and lets them know your character is going to be talking to him/her. After that, it depends on the character's personality. My main, M'sato, normally starts by asking a question or making an observation (e.g. "/em steps over to x and frowns thoughtfully as he briefly studies him/her. "...S'cuse me for bothering you, but d'you mind my asking exactly what that thing you're holding is?") My much flirtier alt, Solomon, would just make an idle observation and try to steer it into compliment territory (e.g. /em saunters over to the rail and leans on it, looking over at x with a smile. "I greatly love Ul'dah. A desert city so hot that its people so often choose to wear so little. What, if anything, do you enjoy about this great, gilded sandcastle?"). Soren, yet another alt who is a consummate Gemini, would probably open with a strange compliment that leads to a talking point (e.g. "Look, I'm sorry if this is going to sound strange, but that is the most purple shirt I have ever seen. And I mean that. You should be proud."). Questions, observations, strange compliments that make them head-tilt...The important point is to try and engage the other party in a manner that encourages dialogue or a reaction. It gives the other party something to sink their teeth into rather than simply walking up, making a statement, and then waiting for the other party to try to figure out if you were addressing them and how to respond on the fly.

The thing about generating ideas is that everyone does it. The trick is to realize what is you're doing and hold onto the good ideas. Start small. Start with a thought. Then look at the thought and see what lies underneath it to discern whether or not it's good ground on which to build a story. The basic part is just a simple "Hey let's take (insert character/s here) and put them into (insert situation here) and see what happens". Once you have that thought, poke at it. Think about what needs to happen for that thought, that scenario, to take place. Consider who would be affected by it, as well as what the central conflict is and if it's going to be engaging. Sometimes it'll be a dud. Sometimes it'll be awesome. An example, you ask? Hey let's take M'sato Tia (my main) and Erik Mynhier (picked at random because he posts a lot) and get them both kidnapped and shoved into an illegal fighting ring where they're going to be forced to fight one another to the death to see how they'd fight or work together in order to escape. ...Now this idea actually isn't too bad. It gives the following: -Two characters who don't know one another and could thus get acquainted. -An illegal underground coliseum, which means there will be bad guys involved who profit from and/or enjoy this. Given that this is a rich person's game? That means the Syndicate. -A chance for the FRIENDS of Erik and M'sato to get in on it, hunting them down through a trail of clues and rumors. -A complex conflict. Sato and Erik don't know one another. M'sato isn't a trusting soul, and he comes off as a bitter, angry little ass most of the time. He's also affiliated with a group that has a really shady reputation. Erik is a known Paladin, generally fairly well-liked by the people who know him, and is a known associate of the Immortal Flames. If they don't get a chance to stop and talk things out before they're forced into the ring, they could very well kill one another. We can only imagine that their captors would try to spin any lie they can to keep the two at one another's throats to make for a more entertaining event. Given how the story goes, they might end up working together...Or going at one another with real murder in their hearts. -The chance to bring in others as additional captives, or even bring in new characters as criminals or guards for the baddies. So now you've got a story idea. It took me about five, ten minutes to iron out this far after picking Erik, including placing it more or less comprehensively into a post. It gets complicated fast, and I haven't even gone into the things that can be done to nudge the story along. Just start with a thought, then once you think it's something you can build a story on, go to work.

On my main, M'sato, I tend to keep around 2-3 outfits. One is for more casual/non-dangerous wear, one is more durable/tough for when he's going to go out and get into trouble, and normally he has a suit for important occasions. He also has some loose, flowing crap he wears when he's meditating or sleeping now that he has a room mate and can't sleep nekkid. Sato's a very no muss, no fuss dresser. My character Solomon has three casual looks that are light and leave his manwhoring chest on display and two set suitable for combat. Solomon likes being able to move unencumbered, as well as looking the part of someone to underestimate. My villain alt, Garret, has his clothing for when he's going to go out and wreck faces or by a spy and then everything else is disguises. My newest alt, Soren, currently wears very workmanlike clothes because he's hit on hard times (and is only level 30 at the moment). When things begin to look up for him, he'll probably be a little bit of a peacock with more outfits than my other characters.

I'll just go ahead and outline how I did any kind of RP in this game: Step 1 - Join the RPC and discuss a character concept. Step 2 - Make a character, level it on up while looking about for RP. Step 3 - The forum actually sort of didn't work for me, so I poked people at random and asked to RP. Step 4 - I asked about people's FCs to get ideas about which one to join. Step 5 - Meet someone I knew in passing from another MMO years ago and join their FC. Step 6 - Hardly ever RP with anyone in that FC because schedules don't line up and I made a damn difficult character to relate to. This is my fault. Step 7 - Meet someone through that FC's IC Linkshell and RP with that person's group a lot. Step 8 - Part as good friends with the group I was in and join the group I RP with all the time. Step 9 - Play the most frustrating character in the FC on an IC level and try to be the nicest dude on an OOC level until present day. This process took me the in the ballpark of two or three months to get to Step 5 and about four or five months after that to hit step 8. In the meantime, I sat back and enjoyed the game and RP'd with random folks while I drank in lore. Honestly, I sort of like that time without the characters being connected strongly. It helps me talk to random folks and refine the characters so I can get the shape and mindset set where it feels right to me. To be frank, I don't think your problems are stemming from your name. I've poked you three times that I recall and added you to my friend list, and I've never managed to pin you down for RP.

Soren Walker is a native Ishgardian airship pilot who has crash-landed in the City-states. At the moment, he is scrabbling to make money in order to make a living for himself in a strange land. Currently, Soren takes work where he can get it so long as it allows him to be in the air. Primarily, these days, he acts as a fill-in pilot for the ship taking patrons to and from the Gold Saucer. It brings him the same weird stories anyone gets while doing that sort of work, but he's a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so he finds it dull. Soren is a new character and sort of needs people to interact with. In terms of personality, he eschews a grim facade for jokes and enjoys coaxing people into sharing their stories, preferring to get other people to talk about themselves over rattling off his own personal biography. In fact, he normally prefers to avoid talking about himself much at all unless it's for some amusing anecdote. In other words, he keeps his own story close to the vest and is careful about whom he shares it with, preferring to be taken as just another fun-seeking face in the crowd. Physical Features: Soren is a hyur midlander with sandy hair left shaggy enough to partially cover his green eyes, primarily because he can't afford to have it cut. Soren is very expressive. Every smile is as if you'd told the best joke in the world, and every sad look is like you're a puppy with puppy cancer. He carries himself in a very cocksure manner. When in places that could be trouble, the character prefers to carry a weatherbeaten old lance, maybe with a knife or two hidden under his coat. The wooden haft of the lance seems to have had some words carved into it, but they're so faded that they're difficult to make out. He carries the thing with casual ease. Soren limps slightly on his left leg, and he occasionally stops and rubs that knee as if it bothers him. If his pant leg is ever rolled up, it would be noticeable that he has on an odd sort of brace. It occasionally makes soft whirring noises. Often seen with a tool belt or pockets loaded down with something clanky. He seems to enjoy tinkering. Meeting Soren As a pilot and all-around odd-jobber when he can't be in the air, Soren can be found just about anyplace. His current base of operations, however, is Ul'dah. He currently keeps rooms at the Quicksand and is often pestering Momodi for flyers about new jobs. He also can be seen on occasion in the Shroud, talking to a woman with green hair. In other words, send me a PM and I'd be happy to RP. You Might Like Soren If... You're willing to handle long-term plots and stories. You're willing to handle short-term shenanigans and japery. You like in-depth RP. You don't want to fall into an IC romance within the first two weeks of meeting IC. You understand that dark sides don't need to be constantly on display to exist. You like getting drunk and base jumping naked IC "Because we got bored".

Dragoons ARE knights. I've had an Ishgardian Wildwood for a while who isn't a Dragoon and never will be. His backstory is that he grew up in a mercenary camp, where the kind of training to make a Dragoon would be in short supply. Instead, he's just good with swords/daggers due to a lifelong association with them. He also rigs up stills whenever he lives someplace for longer than a week a brews horrifying alcoholic concoctions, but tha't just part of his 'charm'.

PRETTY OP? Man, with the health regeneration, multiple crits were the only way to kill people in the tests for a while. It's fun, easy to get to use once you've done it a few times, and getting more and more towards balanced. A good beta and a fun system. And yes, NB owns the bar IC. OOC, NB owns me, basically. >.>

M'sat Tia My original plan for Sato was for him to die early of mysterious causes and be a vessel for me to make friends and get involved with the RP community with a 'starter' character before I decided on a real main. This backfired and Sato turned into said main. M'sato was born and raised in a tribe with a particularly brutal, Spartan way of life. He was brought up tough, capable, and vicious, believing he had to be that way when he faced the world or else risk being stomped over while everything he cared about was taken. Then he began to hear voices when he was fifteen. His perceived madness cost him his potential place in his tribe, and eventually it led to him being ejected from the tribe entirely, where he learned something of humility and empathy. Things happened, he learned he was a Hearer, he fell in love, he got blown up, he got rezzed at the last minute, and his life spiraled out of control where he couldn't reconcile what he believed he should be with who he actually was. Then he basically lost everything and kept losing it until very recently, where he's just sort of begun to stabilize. Sato's good points are in his cleverness, his hidden sort-of-maybe-kinda gentleness deep down, his loyalty, the experience his travels have given him, and his ludicrous amount of determination. Seriously, he never knows when to quit, and most of the time he keeps going even though he knows he shouldn't because he is simply afraid he wouldn't get up again if he finally lays down and admits that it's all over and he's lost. His bad points are that he's a dick who has no idea most of the time how to sit down and actually tell people things. He argues constantly, to the point that he almost always gets into fights with people whom he's trying to sit down and get closer to. His dickery is something he is making an actual effort to resolve, at least in the things he says and does to tear people down, but he's still got a ways to go. Overall, Sato is a lonely soul who doesn't know where he belongs in the world, and most of the time he holds himself together with nothing but resourcefulness and grit. Solomon Laguerre Solomon was originally designed to be a lighthearted, pervert drunk who was secretly a hardened killer when on the job. I swiftly found that to be annoying to roleplay and redid him as a merc who is 'retired' after a long and brutal career, and now manages a bar. He's 'adopted' the bar staff as something of a surrogate family, and while he revels in creating chaos and sex jokes, he is the first person to spill blood, violently, if something disturbs the peace he's made for himself. These days his womanizing is largely curbed by his "Something more than a friend", Eraiya. The two have a somewhat open arrangement, but Solomon is loathe to push hard against its constraints. I wouldn't go so far as to say he's now a one-woman, settled man, but I'd say that he's found a place he feels is home. Now he's digging in trenches to defend it. Solomon's good points are his wits, his skill, his confidence, and his flexibility. He's always ready with a retort, and always ready to flirt and play. Cross him or threaten something he cares for, though, and he's quite willing and able to ram a dagger through your arm and pin you to a table until you beg him to let you leave in peace. His bad points are his bloodlust and a general unwillingness to be serious for long, or at least actually admit to being serious. He prefers to cover what he actually thinks with a playful facade. Those two are the only ones who I've really been able to roleplay on in decent amounts, honestly.

I've seen this done before to hilarious or impressive degrees. My own "Fighter" character regularly spars in the basement of the bar he runs (Rum 'n Rumble, Mist Ward 5 Plot 20- check out my fightin' pit!) with all comers, and he's both won and lost. Usually, I just leave it to /random. The best was when I rolled a 999 and my friend Rinh rolled an ACTUAL 0. I did not know there was even a 0 you could roll. It was amazing. Typically, I leave roll combat as a way to inject randomness into a roleplay. In actual combat, I like to go in knowing an outcome and working towards the end with the other player to tell the story.

Somebody with way too much hubris for his own good. Admittedly, I take a perverse enjoyment in knocking those people down a couple rungs, but that has as much to do with coming up in the same lawless hellholes as Glio and Ark as it does anything. Hell, if anything I try to undersell how competent my characters are, because the other guy underestimating me puts me at a hell of an advantage. Personally, I think it's more fun that way. I see a lot of those sorts of fights turn into "Nobody wants to lose" slog-fests, though.

In terms of roleplay, I think a whole lot of players will drop their shields and pick up bigger, heavier swords. Some will be pure weapon users while others will be full dark knights because reasons. This will be incredibly popular at first, and then it will slow down until Ninja is the most popular IC weapon class again because everyone wants to be a nimble murdersassin.

It looks a whole lot like a compass rose to me, and that would make a lot of sense, given that Arcanists are a class with strong ties to sailing. Arcanima itself was discovered across the ocean and developed later into what is now used today, and the Arcanist's Guild obviously has strong ties to the Lominsan government based on the class quests, much like the Gladiators in Ul'dah and the Archer's Guild (And to a less plot-heavy extent in the class quests, the Lancer's guild) in Gridania.

I believe that RP combat is a matter of consent. No one can force you to consent to being overpowered because their character is super badass. Everyone should always be given an out unless the conflict is already planned and agreed to. Also? Who 'warns' you about how tough his or her character is? That's a little silly. Maybe you can write out that the person moves fluidly, or with a grace that implies confidence in combat, or even imply the character's movements are just a little too fast to be considered 'normal', to hint that this person is not someone you want to get into a fight with. Sending a /tell warning you that you're going to lose seems a little bit unimaginative. If someone declares that their character is super powerful and that they want to pound your face in IC, especially in situations where it isn't warranted, then I have a magic phrase for it: "Thanks much for the RP opportunity, but I'm going to sit this one out because I don't feel comfortable. I hope there are no hard feelings. Have a great night." As a general rule, if someone I don't know is going to walk up to one of my characters and say "Fite me m8 I'm over 9000!" then my character is going to look at the person like he or she is insane and walk away. That is a perfectly normal and reasonable reaction. If the person persists, then that's where the town guard should come into play or I just go OOC and disengage completely. That's my opinion, anyway.

1. I personally set this based loosely along making sure everyone has a 'turn' before people have another, barring things like plot-necessary actions or someone who is OP because plot. 2. It depends on the story and comparative strengths of the characters. You have to straddle the fine line between letting people of varying combat abilities act in the same space according to character while not placing someone in a position they do not consent to in combat. 3. In my general experience, there is a very strong connection between super powerful characters and players who hate to lose IC. I'm certainly not saying this is always the case (I can name four exceptions off the top of my head), but often high-powered characters need special care to not steal too much spotlight when lower-power characters want to participate too. 4. Again, this is dependant on the situation, but largely I'm alright with everyone being able to attack everyone else. 5. Normally both players have to discuss and consent to the action. All players are ultimately in control of their characters. This includes being hurt. 6. I personally feel that different groups have varying opinions on the matter, and interact very differently. As a general rule, the Night Blades have their PC villains on a higher tier of ability than the vast majority of the members of the FC, even able to handle fights on par with the 'Incredibly Skilled' sorts. We do this because everyone likes to dogpile villains and killing the big bad and his minions in the first encounter is sort of an asspain. At the same time, our villains DO get hurt. The other night, the FC's combat group outright killed off one villain (RIP Ryad) and maimed the crap out of two others, requiring the current Number Two baddies to have to spend a significant period of time getting used to replacement magitek limbs. In my experience, Combat RP comes in two flavors. Flavor 1 involves rolls and rules, like at the Grindstone. Sometimes you add in modifiers if you're feeling froggy. Flavor 2 is Cinematic combat, where you're trying to tell a story and the RP is a function of that. A lot of the time, it's best to have a general goal to reach over the course of the fight. Personally, I like talking to the other party and saying "So who do we want to win this?". Oftentimes, you'll see a draw, or you can even have someone interrupt it before things get so bad. In both flavors, I always follow the rule that a character can only be injured if he or she consents. Largely, I tend to dislike a lot of combat RP in slice of life for the same reason people frown on it in the real world: If you get into a fist fight over every little thing, then you're probably kind of a dick and people won't want to be around you.

That's actually a really awesome idea! I like your thinkin'.

Well unless something has changed since last I've seen, you won't be able too. Only FC leaders and a delegate can attend. Which means any outside interaction will be excluded. That may have changed though. Pretty sure he means his group as his FC. Iirc hIs FC is Night Blades and they're attending. Wonderful point. I'm actually an officer in NB. I hadn't known nonreps couldn't attend, but I can see why. It would be crowded that way, and big assemblies are hard to work with a lot anyway. Ah well. Still looking forward to the chance to see a big pile of folks in-game.

Welp, from my knowledge my own FC is going to be attending. We actually don't have a whole lot of interaction with a lot of other groups, so I'm curious to see if there are like-minded folks who are interested in our storylines or vice versa. If my own group doesn't attend, I'd probably show as a nonrep just to see what it's all about. I'm curious. That being said, I'm really pretty astounded at all the criticism it's getting. I strongly suggest that people who detract from the event for whatever reason suggest alternatives along with the criticisms. Having your opinion is fine, but we ALL have one, and that means it's a better idea to contribute something constructive rather than, uh, tearing something down and leaving nothing else in its place. I don't really see the point of all that.