Zhavi

^^^^^ I like to respond in /say or /em and see how many will actually reply there. Most just walk away, or come up with some probably BS complaint about how the other two people RPing in the room are too much chat scroll for them to handle and immediately move on and target the next closest female character. If I'm hanging around reading peoples' rp and/or watching shows, sometimes I like to engage them in utterly meaningless and circular conversations until they get exasperated and stop replying. I think my record was somewhere between 2-3 hours. They never talk to me again after that.

I know, I just disagreed with the part I quoted, so I replied. If you are the type of person who does not like to oocly talk to people when you are looking for rp, and are finding that you are not seeing as many rpers in the areas you haunt looking for rp -- but are in Mateus -- then you're right, that maybe Mateus is a better server to suit your needs right now in this moment. That's okay. Make a character there, keep your character on Balmung for the moment. But in my own experience, there are still oodles of people on Balmung who enjoy open world rp but do not necessarily have a character or rp partner or group to do it with. I say that because over the years I have consistently found such people, even up to about a month or two ago before ooc time intensive stuff had me severely limiting my rp to just one or two folks. I rp with one of them out in the world. Before that I'd contact randoms oocly and drag them out into the wild. All of them were enthusiastic or very open and willing to go with me. But yeah, it does require contacting and meeting people oocly. If that is not your jam, then my next suggestion would be to change the times you go out looking, try different places. The problem is that Eorzea is big enough that it's easy to miss people. But the bottom line is -- if you don't like oocly talking to people and your preferred ic areas/times are active on Mateus, and you find yourself looking that way longingly, it's okay if you would rather rp there. There is nothing wrong with that. You know?

Yo, I have not, nor ever, been a major part of any "established groups." I'm a floater. While I will occasionally help friends with their FC stuff, for the most part I will bounce in and out of groups, going with the rp wherever it goes. As someone who's been around for awhile, it's not like I have some intense connections. I've talked with a lot of people who are in groups, but due to our differences in characters, usually we just never connect. Even back in 2014, on Balmung, I'd do a lot (almost every day) of open rp in Limsa and would rarely see other ic rpers there (though I would get tells from ooc rpers commenting on the rp -- and sometimes even still today on Zhi I get tells from people every few months who saw me when I was active way back when and wanted to say hi!) Which means (when I'm more active) I usually go looking for other rpers, who aren't in rp plots that take up a lot of their time, who jive with whatever rp I'm trying to do. These people don't need to be new. Look at you, wanting to see more rp in the open, wanting a breath of fresh air. Well, there are a lot of people like you. The only difference is they aren't fresh to the game. Why don't they count to you? What makes them so undesirable? They're still creative people with a point of view who are eager and willing to rp. They just haven't found their groove yet. There will come a time on Mateus where people will say "things have changed" "it isn't as active as it used to be" "the rp used to be like this and now it's like this and I want it to be like the old way." It always happens. It isn't a bad thing to like the style of a different community -- servers each have their own feel. It could just be you're attracted to the bohemian feel of a fresh server. Maybe you just genuinely like that fresh car smell. I think maybe you need to have a good sit down and think about what makes you happy. Do players new to the game itself kick your creativity into overdrive? Then you're right, right now Balmung is gonna make you miserable. But to think that Balmung lacks talented, creative, inspired, fresh people who are interested in open rp, then I think you're not looking hard enough. Balmung and Mateus are going to be different. Those differences should be celebrated for what they have to offer -- and you know, it's okay if Mateus looks more attractive to you right now. Embrace it! Have fun! You do you. You can be on both servers, make a character on Mateus if it's calling to you! But I think you're way off base if you think Balmung's rp scene is dying or stagnating for lack of new faces.

I typically start with looking at recent changes, with the reasoning that I'll be less likely to strike out with inactive people if they're still editing/updating their wiki (though that isn't the most effective, since I hardly ever edit my own). I try to reduce the number of no-responses that I get, since that by itself feels discouraging. But random pages, searching for keywords for stuff that interests you (criminal, merchant, bodyguard, tribal, professor, scholar, healer, whatever), looking for specific races or locations: all things that could help. No one method is the be-all, end-all, and these days I'm finding that people are adding outside methods of communication (discord, whatever) -- so that can also help making finding connections smoother, since people tend to respond faster to those than to PMs here. Happy hunting! There are some real gems out there.

I dunno man, like, my own personal ooc issues keeping me from being very active aside, before they shut me down I was meeting new rpers I'd never talked to before left and right -- going through my usual method of combing the wiki. 99% of those people I never knew existed, and I was very pleased with their quality of writing. One of them turned into a rp partner, and while I'd love to reconnect with the others I touched base with, I just don't have the time or wherewithal at the moment. I feel like, you know, if you hang in the same circles and do the same stuff you're gonna see the same people. My rp bud told me that if I hadn't contacted him it was likely going to be his swan song for FF rp and FF in general, because he'd struggled to find likeminded people for rp -- and that would've been awful, cuz he's a fuckin' treasure of a writer (AND I CAN SAY THAT BECAUSE HE DOESN'T GO ON THE RPC HAHAHAHA). So, you know, branch out more. Send some messages to people on tumblr or here, check out random wiki pages. There yet remains a ton of writers on Balmung with story potential that they maybe haven't been able to release for whatever reason, and need a push or a connection. But if you keep doing what you've been doing, you're probably not gonna find them.

The biggest red flag for me will always be when someone starts talking smack about a player because of a character's actions (and I'm not talking about god moding or whatnot), or starts becoming a liiiiiittle too invested in the player. Being a stalker is bad, mmkay? Plus, I dunno, it makes me sad when a player I'm getting to know oocly feels the need to mention things like "I have a spouse/SO, and I am invested in this relationship, and not looking for ooc romance" -- because they've had bad experiences with other players not being able to separate that ooc/ic boundary. Building up a great rp partnership takes a lot of time and effort. It sucks to have to drop it for ooc reasons like persistent and unwelcome romantic interest. Hell, I tend to actively dissuade most ooc communications because of how many second-hand horror stories I've heard ever since my wee teenager days of MUD and PBP rp.

Heh heh, I still am betting I won't get one, but the effort is appreciated. I'm more interested in seeing how they choose to 'fix' the issue -- most notably, whether or not they'll restrict how many houses people can own, or what they'll do to lessen the impact of scalpers.

Housing gone under 15, I think! I hope some rpers got themselves a new house!

May your processor be quick, your internet be speedy, and your clicks on point. Cuz it's gonna be a bloodbath. Do you think you'll get a house? Are you even trying to get a house? Or are you just waiting to glorify in the saltbath to follow?

American timezones go Hawaii-Aleutian, Alaskan, Pacific, Mountain, Central, Eastern. MST is Mountain Standard Time.

I won't repeat what others have said, but, half the battle with self-editing and improving (or broadening) your writing is simply being self aware. You're noticing the repeats. Good. That's a positive trait to have, and the more you're aware, the better you can get at catching yourself and changing things as they happen. If there are words or phrases in particular that you use, then practice or think about other ways to use those words/phrases. Make use of rp/writing buddies, ask how they'd phrase things. Too, sometimes it can be fun to write in certain tics or phrasing that a character might use; I have Tani use 'um' or 'uh' a lot, and for Zhi it was often a 'read me?' or 'yeah?' at the tail end of sentences (and in descriptions, I'd often reuse certain phrases about how she smelled because I wanted a certain kind of consistency and I wanted to stamp it in peoples' minds). Zuri I'll reuse posturing or the way she looks at people and away, because her body language/word choice can be sometimes obtuse, and I want to reward my writing buddies for correctly identifying what some of those things mean without making it too complex for them (or, their character misunderstanding something, which makes intricate scenes all the more fun). Not to say that I don't change it up, but body language can be horrendously complex, and neither I nor they are interested in tons of paragraphs about all the micro expressions a person is capable of making. Shortcuts. Repetitiveness can be a tool to use as much as a weakness to correct -- be thoughtful when you see it in your writing and don't just habitually stamp it out, you know? Also sometimes like someone uses a word or I remember a word that's awesome and wind up reusing it a bunch because in that moment (hours? days?) I'm in love with it and there is no better word. I forgive myself for those, because I'm having fun, dammit. ...also, words that I picked up via thesaurus years ago I still use today. Not all of them, but at the least it broadened my vocabulary. Ain't nothing wrong with learning more words.

Regarding asshole characters and not echoing the sentiments about ooc communication: use your surroundings. Whenever someone showed up to rp with Zhi, I'd give them a reason other than her to stick around. NPCs, spilled drinks, a moral quandary, money, something related to their characters' interests. That way, even though they might be put off by Zhavi's behavior (and questioning whether I, as the player, really wanted to rp), there would be clear signs saying PLEASE STAY AND RP WITH ME OMG I WILL THROW ALL THE THINGS AT YOU IF YOU JUST STICK AROUND I PROMISE YOU'LL HAVE FUN. And then if I doubted that they were actually having fun I might send a little check up ooc message -- "zhi can be such a butt, but I really like __ about this setup, are you okay if I push with ___ happening? :)" Drag 'em on an adventure (or, at the least, present the opportunity). Don't just expect them to sit there wallowing in passive aggressive asshole. EDIT (because I can't post without 'em): Also, personally, when building an asshole character I think it's wisest to give them reason to move. Zhavi was never just sitting around in a tavern, she was always in the middle of something, regardless of whether or not I was emoting about it. Therefore it was always easy for me to pick up and go, drag someone, whatever. I aligned her weaknesses (and relative arrogant youth) to make it easy for her to make mistakes (GUESS WHAT WALKUP FRIEND, MISTAKEN IDENTITY TIME LET'S GO ON A HEIST), or to just have her not give a shit when a convenient person presented themselves to be used in one of her schemes. You know, you judge the walkup character, wait a few posts to get a feel for them, then tailor something to them so you can give them something to enjoy other than a bad or standoffish personality. Create the circumstances that force the interaction that gives them something to react to and act with so they don't feel like they're forced to carry the interaction.

TIERGAN! It's always such a delight to look at your work.

My advice is to get to know people and set up stuff privately if you wanna avoid the grab-bag that can be public opinion. There's always someone willing!

I've played both. It always makes me happy to see someone play a character opposite of their irl gender and play it well. In my forum community we had a gentleman whose first character was female; we usually could tell when men were playing women and vice versa, but for him -- we thought he was a chick for over a year (he didn't have a mic/cam for a long time, so our voice chat get togethers were no help) before he finally said in chat one day, 'you guys know I'm a dude, right?' Ooooops. We were quite embarrassed but lauded him for writing his character so well!

I once had a pretty good arc going with Zhavi and a player playing a yellowjacket character. Zhi's a petty criminal, but her shenanigans eventually drew the ire of the jack, and eventually she wound up getting caught and jailed. Due to her help with another crime, she got boosted out of jail. We played it a little fast and loose because we don't know the exact penal code for Limsa, but you know -- it wasn't all doom and gloom. I had a lot of fun with it. Another thing to remember is that not everyone wants to get your character turned over to the law -- or necessarily even knows a crime is being committed. Once upon a time Zhi and her partner-in-crime convinced a man that this other guy had done some bad, bad stuff to zhi, and convinced the player character to beat and almost kill the dude, who was innocent. When he found out, he wound up beating Zhi pretty thoroughly and then extorting her, so she had to lay low for a long time (I actually had someone ask me oocly if I wanted them to step in icly when the beatdown was happening, haha). I had lots of those with Zhi. My point is that all you gotta do is just work with the people you're playing with. You can have a character who is a total piece of shit, have them do bad things and get away with some of those bad things, and get caught on other things. It's a matter of give and take, like with all rp. Your character doesn't have to go away forever, or get killed. There are innumerable varieties of consequences and possibilities! Don't be afraid to explore them.

I've pre-arranged dysfunctional romance (can't get enough of it) and close platonic relationships. Most of the time these are with people I've rped with for a couple years, but occasionally someone comes along who surprises me. I think something to keep in mind with any sort of pre-arranged rp is that there's a difference between tightly controlled micro-managed rp and loosely controlled macro rp. I think a lot of people are thinking about micro-managed rp in this thread, where you plan out every little detail (where the idea of things feeling forced or like you're stuck on a track even if it falls to pieces) and try to sort of correct for any changes that occur outside of the plans. To me, when I pre-arrange dysfunctional relationships or those tightly knit platonic relationships, I only focus the micro attention to the stuff that happens before the rp occurs. Once that's out of the way, whatever happens in the rp happens. If things don't go the way I'd hoped, oh well. I don't feel disappointed, and I've never had anything crash and burn in a way that felt bad to me (though keep in mind I usually enjoy the crashes and burns in rp, haha). What I like most about rp is that sometimes it surprises, and no matter what the theme of the rp was supposed to be, unexpected directions are always a delight to work with, not something I frown on. As to the why -- well, usually I have certain things I wanna write about, and I create characters that allow me to do this, and sometimes contact people about their characters to allow me to work with them on specific themes or plots. I don't see how romance would be any different to that kind of arranging. I only have a limited amount of free time, you know? I wanna spend it doing stuff I think is fun. And sometimes putting two people in a sappy sweet relationship and then watching it slowly fall apart in a magnificent burst of awfulness is fun!

I used to rp with Kaiverta way back when, and lemme tell you that you can have some fuckin' fantastic adventures with Kai! 10/10 do recommend!! <3 edit - also, Kai's art is great and you can expect professionalism. Do recommend there, too!

I think a lot of this thread is certain words getting misread or misunderstood. I've not really seen anyone say they always feel it is necessary to send an ooc message. The point I was trying and not doing a very good job of making was that sometimes ooc communication during, before, or after walkup rp can help to smooth understanding, to help make issues like your example make sense and -- hopefully in the future! -- create smoother rp between you and those individuals. It's not necessarily that they aren't really into full immersion or open world rp, but rather that there might be misunderstandings that can (sometimes) be circumvented through ooc communication. You don't have to. It won't fix everything. But to me it allows me to rp with a wider range of people, because it allows me to counter different ways (and views) of what is ic behaviors, or account for shit that happened before I got there. That's just me, my take from the thread is that other people do just fine without needing to oocly communicate. We're all different! I think my spinoff examples confused the issue further, but that was all I was trying to say.

<3 I'm not saying it's rude to. Maybe I'm just being really bad at explaining. A vast majority of time, walkups go fine. I'm not bothered by them. I'm like 'hey cool this person saw our rp and liked it so much they wanted to join in.' It's flattering. Cool beans. But for certain scenes, if something looks or seems a little off, I'm going to send a message first. That way I don't waste my time, they don't waste theirs. We can all be on the same wavelength. It's polite, and it's efficient. I guess when I use the word polite it would make sense to assume that I'm saying to not do it would be rude, which isn't how I'm looking at this. I understand that not everyone wants to send ooc messages, and if they don't send me a message I'm not going to think them rude. My tastes and preferences aren't always someone else's tastes and preferences, and that's perfectly fine. I'm just arguing cuz I like my way of doing things!

I've rped my characters in the water, up on the wall (zhi is a climber), in a space not physically represented in the game. When those situations are happening, I'd prefer to let people know oocly first so they actually have the correct positioning for their post -- especially because once the scene is set, I don't care to continuously input that information into my post. I personally hate having to redo posts to account for something I wasn't aware of, so I like to extend that courtesy to others. I like being polite oocly. Zhi can be a total and unreserved bitch icly. RPing her being rude to people was never an issue for me, and also never why I prefer oocly touching base with people (the ooc thing is just how I like to rp to avoid mixups with stepping into someone's away-from-the-beaten-path rp). I'm not sure where you're getting the ic/ooc mixing? Though I'm also not sure if that was aimed at me. But you didn't really directly reply to any of my points so I'm still not sure if your post was directed at me or not, since you're not quoting anyone, heh.

Not necessarily. What if you want it to be seen and responded to, but you just want to sorta give someone an ooc rundown of the full set of circumstances before they jump in? Or, as I said in my other post, what if you want people to see the rp and approach you about it, but that particular rp was supposed to be a little harder for people to just outright join in on? What if you're just an attention whore and want people to read your rp because you just like people hanging out reading your rp because it makes you feel all super special, but don't actually want interruptions? (also, it occurs to me that this is a bizarre twist on the usual issue of 'why is no one rping in public channels?' and 'why can't I get anyone to initiate walkup rp with my character?' IS IT CHANGING? )

I've seen people rp those outfit changes as being ic. Orrrr maybe in his head he was waiting until y'all were wrapping up because he thought it was the better option. Maybe he is an entrenched asshole who does whatever he feels like because other people exist to enhance his fun. People are weird, and can justify things in ways that are utterly mysterious to me, but to them make perfect sense. That's what I'm trying to get across -- sometimes it's just quicker and less frustrating to ask oocly, or communicate why you're doing this or that. Not everyone is gonna agree with me, which is cool, but besides trying to get along, what other options do we have? Being frustrated or not caring? I don't wanna be frustrated, and I like trying to include a variety of people in my rp circles. So I try to compromise where I can.