Tiergan

HGNGNGH CHOCOBO RACING GUYS. Also if one of you becomes a fancily dressed stranger who rides a black chocobo and is always a few paces ahead, I WILL FITE YOU.

I found out a few week back that "Vashir" actually means "Savage" in Farsi (most awesome accident ever! \o/), so I'm going to say that Tiergan/Lurial are children with a Persian dad and a mother from the UK who really had a thing for Celtic names growing up.

I feel like Adventurer 1 is not so much an example of an OP character but one that's sledgehammering the lore into pieces, devouring the remains, and then shitting them out into a fire - so this feels pretty skewed towards the underpowered option. That said, I like playing characters that are either underpowered, more middle of the road, or characters that are highly skilled in one or two aspects that they devote much of their time to. To me, underpowered characters can be fun because most people tend to play normal or OP characters and the dynamic between a normal/overpowered character and an underpowered one can be a TON of fun because of the contrast in experience. You get to essentially be a foil to other people's characters - enhancing and bringing out their strengths, which is nice simply because it sometimes makes people feel good about their characters. Most of my characters tend to be more of the "pretty awesome at one or two skills" variety though simply because when your character exists in a world full of magic, giant monsters, beastmen, Primals, voidsent, magitek, and ancient allagan constructs ... playing the underpowered character cuts you out of certain types of experiences that most normal/OP characters would probably go through regularly - which can kind of be a bummer. I don't like playing OP characters because I don't really trust my ability to do it without coming off as some huge cliche Mary Sue. I feel like pulling off an OP character well, without making other RPers feel marginalized or like their sense of agency over the RP is being taken away is pretty tough. You have to have a keen awareness of how far you can push boundaries before the people you are RPing with feel uncomfortable and when to stop. Additionally - OPness just seems like a lot of upkeep. For example, if you are a normal or underpowered charactee - losing or winning a duel is no big deal. When your character is supposed to be pretty OP though? Losing can mean you look less badass unless you know how to have your character lose gracefully or in a way that still shows they are pretty powerful.

Now spearheading the "Make All Adventurer Guilds Into RP Hubs" Initiative. New plan: Have terrible, wonderful drinking contests in the Drowning Wench.

I personally would love to see the Adventurer guilds (or the Bismark) get some more use in other cities. It's kind of a bummer when my non-Ul'dahn alts have to head to Ul'dah for the brunt of most RP.

I don't think a critique upon the community means those of us who have been here for a while are 'bad' or assholes. At the end of the day, there's nothing wrong in being told that newer folks are having a hard time and that some of us could do a little more to help make it easier for the newest members of the community to find RP and feel like they're part of the whole. Even if it's just small things like RPing with a new person every once in a while or stopping by the Quicksand or making events that are more oriented around helping folks get to know one another instead of something more scripted and theatrical.

While I agree with Sounsyy that making folks feel uncomfortable and just sort of continuing on with making people uncomfortable is kind of a shit move. I also agree with Faye that if people are having a civil discussion about something relevant and important to the game, it's kind of strange to force them to censor themselves from talking about it in the game itself. It's VERY easy to divert your attentions elsewhere for a short period of time - and as long as everyone involved is keeping it as a respectful debate and not a snipefest, what could it really harm?

^^^^^^^^ This. To be honest, I was kind of bummed out seeing how many new folks are having such a hard time getting RP rolling. While it's great that we're offering bits of advice here, I feel like we should also be thinking about how we can do more to help others out. We're not obligated to take in every single person that comes our way into our RP -- but that also doesn't mean we shouldn't adjust our behavior a little to help others find and get RP in our community. If it means just RPing in the Quicksand a little each week, or trying to greet one new person that you've never met before every once in a while -- what could it hurt? I'm currently slammed by work for the next four weeks, so it's hard for me to even manage to get RP for myself beyond a couple of hours on the weekends, but once I have sweet, sweet freedom, I would be down for collaborating with others on creating icebreakers or ways for others to enter the fold with less trouble.

If the debate is 100% civil - I personally think it's fine (and actually super informative!) to have lore debates whether they be here on the forums or in a linkshell. I learned so much stuff just from watching some of the lore-hounds on this forum chat it up and debate with one another over different details. The only time I get uncomfortable is when it's very obviously getting super heated and both sides are taking things way more personally than they should be for a talk over the structure and culture of an imaginary fantasy world. If insults and snide, passive-aggressive remarks are getting tossed around, or folks are taking an extremely "MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY, BRUH" approach with lore - I feel like it's doing more harm than good.

I spent an insanely long time thinking the RPC was were ALL of Balmung's RPers hung out and then someone convinced me to get on Tumblr. That's kind of when I learned it's practically twice as big as I thought it was. :V

THIS. I'll be the first person to admit that unless I'm on my bard, I am the most awkward penguin alive when it comes to trying to initiate a casual walk-up with someone. ;___; 3 out of 4 of my characters are just not the types to randomly approach people without a reason, so it's really tough. I have to invent hooks for myself and they don't always really work out too well without feeling awkward from a social-sense. Chatting with folks OOC always kind of helps me sort myself out - just to help myself feel less awkward and not to script out an entire interaction. As for the Quicksand - for me there's a mix of reasons why I don't typically go there. 1) None of my characters except Leilani would really go to a bustling tavern for drinks. It would be pretty out of character for them unless they were invited by someone to share a drink or eat there. While they're not really loners, they're also not the personality type to go to a bar or they have backstory reasons why going to a tavern in Ul'dah specifically wouldn't be a great idea for them. (which is why it kinda bums me out that the Bismark or The Drowning Wench don't get used as often.) 2) As I mentioned before, I am a huge shy dork. :V If I'm not on a character that is naturally outgoing and inquisitive, I feel UNIMAGINABLY awkward trying to plug myself into people's conversations or just walk up to others without coming off like a social cripple. I know that not a lot of people have had success with events, but I suppose I like them mainly because it really helps me when I have some built in context for why my character is around some people. I can springboard off of it and immediately engage folks. 3) Maybe it's not happening anymore, but was a period of time when people soliciting others for ERP got really, really, REALLY bad in the Quicksand. I don't mock Quicksand RP, because I have friends who enjoy going there to fish up random roleplay, but I'm kind of skittish of heading back. There were a ton of times where myself or others I know have gone there, gotten propositioned for ERP minutes into a conversation with a person. Some of my roe-lady friends have gotten asked repeatedly if they're secretly futas. (Wat.) It's also particularly bad if you're playing a miqo'te because lots of ERPers (who often wind up being miqo'te themselves) just kind of assume 99% of all people playing cats want to get their freak on. This has happened even when folks were blatantly playing characters who are basically still children. I kept visiting here and there on various characters hoping for some random RP - but eventually it honestly felt like if you were in the Quicksand and you weren't looking for a hook-up, no one really wanted to have anything to do with you. It got to the point where at one time, I was really tempted to start a new thread on these forums advocating for a second RP hub in Limsa for people who just want to share a drink/chat with people and not have to worry that someone's going to try and get into someone's pants. I understand that the there are plenty of people who go to the Quicksand not wanting ERP and that the ERP brigade is not there every single day at every single hour. However, when the majority of your experience is initiating an RP conversation with someone, getting excited that you've managed to strike up a decent conversation, only for it to suddenly veer towards cocks 5 minutes in -- it gets really, really discouraging. Add the whole cripplingly-shy thing along with the not-really-IC-for-my-character thing and it was actually pretty distressing and uncomfortable for me to be there, more so when I was playing a female character instead of a male. That said, I might head there with my bard in the future once my real life schedule is less of a clusterfuck to sort of dip my toe in the pool and see if things are a little better now.

I enjoy being in busy areas and people-watching but I'm shy and panic when strangers approach me. Even with friends it makes me uncomfortable. I don't think I should have to remove myself from these places just becuase I don't take well to walkups. I had two unpleasant experiences earlier this evening that further put me off on acknowledging walk-ups. In both instances, the groups I was with humored these players. Both times these players had a 'their way or no way' mindset and since they didn't get their way, they were going to do their damnedest to ruin it for everyone. Ahhh, I didn't think of it from that perspective. In that case, this is just extra reason why poking someone with a tell OOC is probably the best bet if someone's not really receiving a response.

FITE ME. Yves-senpai can have many kouhai, BUT THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE BESTEST KOUHAI. (::quietly bribes Rivienne with artwork to win her favor too.:)

I've been having trouble sleeping lately because I'm in a software engineering boot camp and it is an insane amount of work. It devours 90% of my freetime and by the time I try to rest, my brain is all wound up with all the coding languages I've been frantically trying to get to stick in my brain. Also, sometimes I dream in code now. Can't sleep. The code monsters will eat me.

Whoops! I missed that. In that case - yeah, that is some incredibly bad form. On the otherhand, if they are going to flagrantly ignore someone who is obviously trying to initiate RP with them without so much as a quick look their way to acknowledge they exist - they probably weren't the kind of RPers you'd want tl hang about to begin with. I wish I could offer better advice on how to rustle up more random RP, but to be honest, I am super shy and actually have difficulty approaching folks for random RP unless I am on a specific character or have a plan in mind. Most of the RP friendships my character has made outside my FC are people he met at server events because when something special happens, its pretty easy to thrust a bunch of strangers together and have them bond as they go through shenanigans. OP - while I'm not able to play as much as I used to due to real life being a huge pain, feel free to toss me a message on these forums on what days/times you are usually free. If my schedule matches up, I'll hop on Leilani Leilai and we can be each other's RP wingperson. Leilani is the most outgoing, cheerful, and excitable character I have and is pretty much the only character I have that I don't feel sort of awkward approaching random people with - so hopefully between the two of us we can shake things up until RP falls out.

One thing I've noticed is that if: 1) You're trying to strike up random RP with a group has like 4-6 people or more in it all talking together. 2) You're in an already crowded place full of people RPing like the Quicksand. 3) You can't seem to get anyone to even respond to what you're doing or acknowledge you even exist. I'm willing to bet money that the group literally didn't even see your emotes/posts. I've been to big tavern events where everything is so crowded and the chat is scrolling so fast that I'm left frantically scanning the chat log for names of people I know my character is speaking to so I don't miss things in the conversation. This unfortunately makes it way too easy to miss if someone's emoting at me because I'm too busy looking for the names of people my character is talking to. My advice is if you've emoted at someone a couple of times and they're in a group, chatting in a crowded place, and get no response - just poke one of them with a friendly tell: ((Hey there, do you mind if my character joins in somehow? Or is this private RP?)) USUALLY people will say yes, and then they'll be able to scan for your name too as well as the names of people they've already been conversing with. If they say no - then you can silently judge them for having private RP in the middle of a public, open area instead of meeting up at an FC house or a more a place more secluded. ( Because in my mind, it's just common sense to not RP in a giant public hub full of RPers if you don't want to get approached by other RPers. )

Even though Ul'dah is sort of Tiergan's usual turf, I don't think it would hurt to have RP happening in more places around the game-world. Spread the love all about and all.

Hey folks, I just thought I would take some time to be more explicit about something probably wasn't very clear on. Other than not having much playtime and having to RP individually with so many people, the reason why I went out of my way to describe this arc as "organic", "slow" and something that should be seen as a way to grab occasional supplemental RP is that ultimately - there is not a huge amount of structure to help point the way in regards to what your character should do next. There is enough to get something started and give reasons to run into new or old friends and RP with them if you decide, but at the end of the day, the only scripted portions of the plot are: 1) What happens with you and the gem. 2) What happens with you, your gem, and other people with gems. 3) What happens if you write to the Sisters of the Red Lotus. 4) What happens if you arrange to meet with the Sisters of the Red Lotus. 5) What happens if you run into or find Tiergan. (If you are tired of waiting around for me to find you - it is actually way easier for people to straight up give me their schedules and arrange a meeting time with me. The list got so huge that I admittedly feel overwhelmed sometimes.) 6) What happens if you want to RP out a scenario where your character was captured by the Mystery Hunters and your friends want to help get you back. (It involves an IC dungeon run, so if that isn't your thing, let me know and I can devise something else that is not dungeon related.) 7) What happens if your character does one of two very specific to "the Lotus", tries to destroy it, or tries to take it away from Tiergan. 8) What happens if your character decides to help 'awaken' rather than help close the Lotus. Other than that, the arc is organic rather than scripted. There is no clear directive on what to do next. I understand that some people enjoy plots that have much more structure and clearer goals. I actually do too. Normally, I like to provide more structure so people never feel lost. Unfortunately, this story can't work that way because of real life constraints. Therefore, if you are bored, unhappy and have realised that this isn't really what you expected or wanted when you signed up... THAT IS 100% OK. I know where you are coming from. I will definitely not take it personally if you want to exit from things and step away from the arc. You will not hurt my feelings, I will not think poorly of you, and I will absolutely respect your feelings because they are 100% valid. My biggest concern is that people will grow frustrated and upset because they don't want to participate anymore but feel "stuck" out of fear that I will get mad and throw a fit. Please do not worry! All that said, I definitely see that I need some way to push things forward for more people, so I will be making some adjustments and bringing in some volunteers to help speed things up. Thanks!

So long as you're aware of the potential problems that could crop up. I ran into an issue semi-similar to this back in another MMO. The guild I was in revolved around a certain faction that turned out to all be villains in later updates. It was very awkward. :V

With the disclaimer that I feel that anyone can RP whatever they like if they're having fun: I also think it's super risky to take a canon faction like this - especially before more lore gets released that could potentially mess up all your plans and especially if you're letting folks take last names that link them directly to the house or creating occasional NPCs that are supposed to speak for the house. Personally, I feel that it's probably a safer bet to just create a regular, original noble house that you can do whatever you like with without having to fear of being constrained by what SE might do with the major faction.

Just some sketches and some images that came as a result of me discovering the glories of photoshop actions. Tweaked some of my art and some screenshots with AMAZING photoshop actions by sevenstyles.

I had no idea where else to put this so... HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVE, FRIENDS.

Master post updated.

Red Lotus Linkshell has been created! Everyone, upon joining, instantly gets pearl-distribution privileges. Please use them to invite in people you know are also in the plot or friends who are interested in the plot even though they don't have gems. (I.e. Your IC lovers, best friends, family members, etc.) Please use the linkshell to grab a person and engage in red-lotus related shenanigans. Hit up a stranger and do some gem-vision swap times. Bump into someone and notice that "hey, you have one of these weird stones too!" Race away from your terrifying new stalkers and crash into another stranger who is running from hunters of their own. If you can come up with some other neat idea that the stones could mysteriously do to help make conjuring up RP even easier, feel free to send me suggestions. If they work with what I have planned, I will throw them in. Shy people, please don't be scared about asking for RP times! BE BOLD! As for the mysterious cloaked NPCs - you are 100% allowed to give your character's new stalkers any personality, appearance, armor, etc you like. They (usually) wear cloaks, but not always - so you literally have free-reign in designing them how you like. Feel free to make up encounters where they are watching, stalking, hunting, or attempting to capture you and others. Design them for whatever helps you get more RP - even if it’s for things unrelated to the Red Lotus plot. The only requirement for these NPCs is that they will not speak of who they work for or why they are hunting you even under threat of death. This is half because the NPCs wouldn't fess up and half because it frees you guys from having to worry about whether or not you're breaking my future plot plans with the kind of NPCs you create. They can be smart, dumb, bumbling, efficient, fanatical, or even oddly kind. You have free reign. If you don't have a free LS slot, that's okay. I'll just try to put you on priority for me running into you if I haven't already. Edit: I forgot to mention - the NPC hunters in the Red Lotus plot would most definitely be trying to capture your character alive. Generally they would also try to do the least harm possible. However, you can have a particularly aggressive or bumbling hunter that does damage in favor of a higher capture success rate. I will add all of this to the original when I get home later today.