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A thermos with a twelve hour cold rating to keep ice for my several bottles of water. And a plan to make some food that I can eat cold or quick prepare while gaming. Other than that, nothing special planned or prepared, except making sure I wake up late so I can play for a while.

I was disappointed by the lack of extra Armory space. I already have a hard time holding my outfits and my normal class gear. At least the retainers will give me somewhere to put my gear. (Yes, I know they can't do it because of console players, primarily, but it'd still be nice if we got more space in the armor, even 10, hell, even 5 more spaces would help.)

I also tend to do the sackful/handful of gil method, and no one's said much so far. I know Glioca, for the candies she makes tends to charge a moderate amount (50 gil, so if assuming that 100 gil is a dollar, her candies are .50 cents each, roughly). Ultimately, I think a non-specified amount is usually best, since there's no way of getting a universal equal amount out without consulting lore devs. That said, that might be a good question to propose. They might consider gil more like yen, and less like a dollar, which would make a little more sense, I think. We've seen that the gillionaire achievement requires 10,000,000 gil, and in yen, that's a pretty good hunk of change. I think counting it more literally might be the easiest way to go. It technically deflates the value of gil, but given that FFXIV is originally a Japanese game, it would make more sense to me if the currency is based on their own, rather than any other currency system.

I might have played an Au Ra as my main if they weren't so delicate and small. Glioca is and always has been a larger woman (6'5"), and while I've been forced to play her shorter in other games without a height slider, the idea of her suddenly being tiny because reasons and shiny new race is so off-putting. The fact that she has/had draconic history in other settings might have been a motivating factor, and I made a version of her as a Raen, which was quite pretty, but I can't imagine her as anything but an Elezen. I do have alts that are going to be Au Ra, one of whom I've played off for a while as being disguised, and the other is a character who passed away, who I'm only using the class levels for.

Glioca has a variety of outfits (being female, that's kind of expected). She's got her long black coat with white undershirt (Direwolf Robe of Healing) for traveling, she has some standard tunics when around her home (Glade Tunic), a standard dress for when she wants to feel a bit more girly (Riviera Dress), a formal tunic for when she's visiting Ul'dah or generally visiting anywhere (Oasis Tunic), a set of gear for when she's doing anything that might get her too dirty (Blacksmith AF), and a very large and plush robe for cold weather (Vanya Robe) (the cold never bothered her anyway. no, seriously.). Also a bathing suit, because Costa Del Sol. I like to have a variety for her character, to express that she's a living breathing individual who at least tries to keep her wardrobe fresh, and that she wears more than just the same thing day in and day out, because she is a varied individual and it doesn't make sense that she'd want to wear the same thing every day. That said, can I just express how much I want the shirt -under- the Cashmere/Direwolf coat, because I think it would look fantastic as a stand alone poet's shirt type garment? Just me? Most of my others wear basically whatever they have at the time, for now (low level, no real outfits, etc).

More Stuff Yet More Stuff I tend to have a good gauge on when my characters are outmatched. Sometimes, even a simple fighter can do something that surprises even my strongest character, and it gives her (and occasionally me) pause and makes me go 'Wha?'. It's also dependent on how your character is. Example: Glioca'd is well versed in both combat and anatomy, and in a fight, usually goes for the least defended but most vulnerable areas in order to try and end conflict quickly. Liviana has almost no combat experience, and swings very wildly when in combat, with no real skill, grace, or finesse, and if she lands a blow, it's nigh on a miracle. Again, with Freeform, you have to give someone the benefit of the doubt. My characters can, have, and will continue to take blows even where they don't seem possible because sometimes that just happens, and someone gets one over on you. I also like to take certain types of blows with my characters because it adds interest to a fight. I don't like the unpredictability of dice however, because, and I've said this before, there are situations where certain things wouldn't make sense, and it feels ridiculous to have, for example, a very graceful character suddenly trip over their own two feet because that's the only way it makes sense that they missed the attack they were making. I think my problem with dice is that when characters do have a very discernible difference in strength (Liviana vs. someone else), I want to know that I can rely on my role-playing to get me through the conflict, and not a set of dice rolls. My intention with Liviana is that if she gets into a fight early on, I want her to lose, and unfortunately, dice might make it so that doesn't happen, if I roll well. That being the case, I'd have to ignore the dice rolls to mitigate and reflect her lack of skill regardless, so why even bother to roll them to begin with? I'd not be opposed to a system of stats and abilities, because I'm very familiar with that in a d20 setting, and it does more to take actual strengths into account with dice, rather than simply flat numbers that don't show differences in what a character might specialize with. I understand that the narrative doesn't always go the way I want it to, in fact, I welcome it, but I don't want to rely on a random number generator in order to achieve that effect: it should be the ability to play the character, not the ability to play force the character to do something that doesn't make sense for them because an outside force dictates I have to take x action or I'm somehow 'cheating'. And for what it's worth, I've seen the same screaming matches that get started over Freeform, be started over dice rolls and how they 'should be handled', so I think I'll just have to say that dice, like freeform, isn't for everyone.

I think I might have misrepresented what I meant by 'clever'. I'm referring specifically to the player willing to be inventive, creative, and willing to compromise and acknowledge when they might be outmatched. If someone's fighting dirty against someone who's trying to fight smart, the person fighting dirty will likely have better tricks and get an upper edge, obviously because they're pressing the advantage, but also because they're not following traditional convention. That doesn't necessarily guarantee victory, but also doesn't guarantee a loss. Any good RPer should be willing to accept wins and losses equally. God knows the last time Glioca was in a fight, despite the fact she was able to move at the end, she still lost the fight and was technically the more injured party at the end. And she acknowledged she lost to her opponent. Frankly, as long as both parties are having fun with the fight, that's more important than anything else. I do agree with Brianna, that it's an online game and not a fanfiction. As such, I expect that my character should be able to react accordingly how they would, and not have their actions dictated down by a roll of the dice (writer). I'll have to agree to disagree on this point, but I still stand by my earlier statements. If a bad roll of the dice meant more than just a 'quick loss', people would be less eager to rely solely on dice.

That's subjective, though. Really subjective. There's actually nothing subjective about it. It boils down to the more inventive mind. The one who can come up with the most clever application of what their characters can do. Sometimes it boils down to the person just finding a way to do something in a fight that has you sitting back going, 'Damn. I really don't think I could beat this or get out of it fairly. I'll take that hit gladly, props to the other player.' There's nothing subjective about someone being exceptionally clever. If they manage it, that's awesome. If they don't, I don't want a computer program saying that my writing and well thought out tactics mean absolute shit because I got one lower number than someone else on a die. I save that for mass conflicts that have to be resolved quickly, or my D&D game. And even then, it's never just 'flat numbers', especially as characters get stronger. How willing would you be to put dice in control of what happens to your character if there was no need for permission for character death, but a loss, even one to a minor character with no skill, means permadeath, a fantasia, a name change, and re-rolling your toon, with months (and sometimes years) of work lost? Because I guarantee you, very few people would be as eager to yell 'dice rolls!' if rolling a 1 when you need a 10 means you lose that character permanently.

I've had to deal with my fair share of god modders, and worse types of conflict RP. If I stop or try and ignore conflict RP because one or two people burned me, I'd be limiting myself, and closing myself off from potential RP partners. Again, back to the point of doing myself and them a disservice. I think A'rk summed up the reasoning behind why it isn't that big of a problem and that I don't need to go much further into it.

A character wants to fight one of mine? Cool. I'm game. If the play doesn't run the way I want it to (fairly and with lumps taken where appropriate), then I'll be happy to simply avoid conflict with that individual in the future, or play, if I find them to be unwilling to give and take equally (again, where appropriate). The responses of my characters are a little different, however, but I, as a player, am usually pretty eager to RP fight, as I find repeated slice of life RP to not be my cup of tea. Glioca's a tough individual to beat because she has a lot of magic to draw on, coupled with her very insane physical strength. She doesn't believe in a lot of technique because her raw power is so high, and she prefers to punch someone into a building/structure/out a door/window/etc to end a fight. In the case of someone riling her repeatedly, she usually shoots for intimidation first (breaking something not a person), before she resorts to violence actively against someone else. Aelden is a scrapper and would give it his best shot, but he's good at taking his licks and stores the fight away for a later date, usually to revisit the issue later with a second instance of combat. And probably again and again, until he eventually beats them. My Ninja wouldn't care much to get into a fight unless it's something that she's been specifically tasked with doing. She's a big believer in taking a deep breath, counting, and walking away from impending conflict because it serves no purpose for her. She will flee if a fight becomes more than she can handle. Liviana would flail a lot and ask what she did wrong because she didn't /think/ she was doing anything wrong and please don't make the injury too severe because she can't afford a good healer. She's stubborn, and would keep trying, but would get whupped all over the field. Dark doesn't like to fight at all, and generally avoids it as much as possible, but if pressed, she can and does know how to defend herself quite well. That said, even Glioca, strong as she is, can and has technically lost fights, though they normally end in a double k.o., as it were, with both opponents knocked flat on their backsides, or unable to continue fighting because they've been too depleted, worn down, etc. Even my strongest (Glioca) would applaud someone who got one over on her, because she likes to see that ingenuity from others. She's very arrogant about her own strength, but I recognize that she's got limitations, and so does she, and if people are willing to find those limitations without a large degree of hand-holding, then that makes me happy as a RPer. As far as RPing combat, I'm happy to do so with free-form (with OOC communication if any issue arises), and like A'rk, I really don't like dice rollers. I've used them in the past, but my issue with dice is that sometimes they favor a weaker combatant more heavily. Glioca once got almost KO'd by an NPC with almost no combat skill because my dice hated me that day. And that is honestly ridiculous. It's more akin to watching an experienced fighter take on a kid flailing their arms at them, and watching the kid win. There's so minuscule a chance of that, it'd be unrealistic to watch, much less play.

The hair is.. nice. Kind of like to see some wavy hairstyles for women. WTB that first hairstyle for women, as well.

For what it's worth, while I'd hoped that poetics would be uncapped because I find it difficult to grind any type of content until my eyes bleed, I'm not really that upset that it didn't uncap. It would have been nice to max out the remaining gear I had that was i100 or less, but it isn't so large a thing that I'd quit over it. I also don't think that people would quit just because poetics were uncapped. If they were going to do that, they'd do it regardless of was capped or uncapped, especially as, since Warren said, there has been such a length of time to grind them. It's a very common theme for people to drop a game pre-expansion, then pop back into the game at release, grind out the content as fast as possible, and then quit again. It's a revolving door type of mentality. Mind you, a lot of RPers don't seem to share that same mentality, but I realize a lot of it is about people wanting to keep subs. That said, even if people stop playing, they often continue with their subscription, especially since it gains them veteran rewards. As far as FCoB, that doesn't even apply to me, as I've not even completed Binding Coil.

I was pretty disappointed by the patch notes (no poetics cap removal).

Glioca Sargonnai - Now with 100% more photoshop, (because my graphics can't go to Ultra, thanks, outdated video card.)

Glioca Sargonnai - 2.5 // Particularly strong NPC's would cause problems for her, but she tends to fight anyone at their own level, rather than her own, largely because she doesn't actually like to hurt other people, given her primary focus most of the time as a healer and protector. She can and will break her personal vow against the particularly wicked, however. She knows a lot of magic, but her strength comes from her spell combinations, and the raw physical power generated from tweaking and infusing her body with large amounts of aether. She's a battery, and that translates into her muscles and body at a very base level, giving her the ability to generate enough force to punch through steel. She works more at holding back her strength than letting it loose. She's most deadly when paired with her husband, however, and the two work well together. She's not bad with a sword, but she's best without weapons at all. Aelden Sargonnai - 3.5 // He has had a lot of practice with weapons, being well into his seventies as an Elezen. He's got a fair hand with magic, and is good with twin blades (rogue, but more duelist-y), and has been in a number of skirmishes over the years. He's got more strength with one than he does the other, but he has his weaknesses as well. Liliane Allard - 4 // She's an Ishgardian dragoon, a heretic hunter like her partner, and is best suited in pursuit of a foe. She's obviously stronger against foes where she can utilize her spear skills, but is abysmal at range, and unless there's enough room for her to take advantage of her strength, speed, and jumps, she's going to be sorely outmatched. Mages give her no end of fits unless she can close the distance fast, and while her armor is good against a gun to a point, she's obviously got her weak spots. Zephyrine Beraud - 4 // She's a well rounded individual when it comes to combat and skills, has no skill with aether outside of what little physical energy she uses for her ninja abilities, and works best with her partner. While she can handle a number of fights one-on-one, she's more used to working in a team and having someone at her back to rely on. She's good with mudra shaping, and has a good chi pool. She's a Xaela that's been operating under a glamoured disguise (and her name will change accordingly once we have an idea of naming conventions). Dark Moonlight - 4 // She's a fair hand with a pair of blades, and knows how to use them. She's got some aetheric abilities due to her unique background and origin, but most of those are non-combat skills, and wouldn't be useful at all. Physically, she's tough, in part because of her size and build, but also because she's had time to devote to practicing her combat style. Liviana Thorne - 5 // Just starting out and getting a grasp on fighting, she's taken up with the pugilist's guild, and wants to get stronger. She's not yet proven her mettle, but she's definitely trying. ____________________________________________ I've got other characters in the works, but these are really the ones who are 'developed' in my head right now, specifically in terms of combat.

I've always found the term 'special snowflake' to be a little pointless. Snowflakes are inherently different, and the chances of finding two identical are very, very slim, because of the conditions required to create those snowflakes. At the same time, people think differently, and have different ideas, so characters will be different, and what one person finds to be interesting and unique, another person might look at and groan and go 'Oh god, this idea is terrible to me.' That said, I think that people make these choices because, as said earlier in the thread, people want to make a character that to them, is interesting. Not everyone wants to play, well the everyday mundane stereotype. Some people want a hint of fantastical, or unique. And there's actually nothing wrong with that. I find the idea silly of dismissing a certain type of character just because of their background. If I have to dismiss anything, it's generally because of OOC, because ICly, I'll interact with just about anyone - you never know how those interactions might motivate, shift, and change your character, sometimes in good ways, but also sometimes in bad. I'd rather stretch lore a bit here and there for good RP, than play out the same slice of life thing every day: average person of typical nationality in specific city-state doing predesignated job based on NPC's in the area, who gets up, goes to work, does their job, comes home, eats, potentially beds their significant other, and then sleeps. If that was all most of us wanted, we wouldn't really be acting out fantastical stories in a MMO anyway. That said, I'm happy for those who want to play that way, because if writing that is what's fun for them, then that's fantastic, I'm glad they've found a way to play that makes them happy. Some people prefer the average, some people want outside the average. The wants of the player is really the only 'reasoning' for irregular race/nationality combinations, and honestly, does the rest of it really have to be beaten over the head?

I have a couple of characters who will be influenced by the MSQ, but for the most part, everyone's going to be just going 'Huh. Well that happened', and going on about their business. Conversely, I have a character who's much more impacted by what's going on in Ishgard than she is what's going on in Ul'dah. As far as the why of it, I pay attention to the MSQ because for the most part, I can't play in a bubble. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't play in an MMO, I'd play in a forum where I can dictate precisely where the storyline is at all times. But in an active and moving world with a few thousand players at the very least, I can't expect current events in MSQ to not catch up to me, even if I'm behind the story.

I have people I've had to cut ties with ICly because of OOC behavior, and it usually ends the same way. Our characters either drift apart, or it ends up being an outright betrayal, depending on the way things in the RP have gone prior to the OOC split. My character has had some rough times because of that, everything from outright betrayal by people who claimed to love her very deeply, to a very sad parting of the ways before she later found out that the person who had parted with her had actually betrayed her, and she had to find out second hand that it had happened. In another case, my characters wife just up and left him after the player and I had a massive OOC spat. Made for interesting, but head-screwy RP. I think it all depends on the situation. It also depends on how mature both players can be. I've had some who, while the player and I don't get along OOCly at all, the IC aspect is maintained because we keep firm distance. Just because I hate the way someone acts, doesn't mean their character and mine split. There are a lot of factors, and I don't think any one blanket statement will do, but when someone is actively breaking the ToS, I do agree with others: cut your losses and try to find something ICly that will leave your character not too wrecked. I don't retcon anything, ever, even if it kind of sucks for my 'toon (and conversely, for me as well), but that's just personal choice.

Glioca would probably take to being the Warrior of Light really well. And then immediately discarded every bit of destiny and rewritten things herself. Most things, she finds, can be handled with a spell-bolt between the eyes. Teledji? Not an issue. Lolorito? Also not an issue. And she sure wouldn't have had to wait for Raubahn to free her hands, as she's incredibly strong. Being framed wouldn't have mattered to her, as in RP she operates outside all of the different City-States anyway. The biggest thing would have been the Sultana being poisoned. She'd have immediately started applying first aid, as Glioca is, first and foremost, a healer, and wouldn't have let a woman she respected just die in front of her without trying to lift a hand. That vial? Yeah, that wouldn't have been on her person. It would have been stowed away elsewhere in the city until she could go back for it. She never keeps what could possibly be foreign substances on her until she identifies it thoroughly - she's an alchemy practitioner, and knows the dangers that can pose. Unfortunately, Glio's too genre savvy to make a good WoL. Too much wouldn't make it past her radar, and blow some badguys plans out of the water. She's definitely not the most trusting individual, and that helps greatly.

Glioca's got a wide range to her voice, and she's had a lot of time to practice singing. She's got a huskier sounding voice, a little deeper, so I'd say probably somewhere between Enya and Malukah. ITe7uPTNuK0 4zgsPO48wvw

I am a Voidsent Potato. :tonberry: In all honesty, I'd say I relate somewhere between Adventurer 1 and Adventurer 2. One of my characters is frighteningly strong (my main), while some of my other characters are painfully average, and I enjoy them all equally. I don't view characters in terms of 'power' as much as I do personality, and will. An "underpowered" character with a strong will can beat out an overpowered character in terms of the type of individual I'd rather play with, if they present their story well. At the same time, a world full of average joe's is what we live in, and if I really wanted to deal with that, I'd go outside. I love RP for the diversity in characters, the strong ones, the weaker ones, and the ones striving to go from one side of the table to the other. I've got characters that range from the top of the spectrum to the bottom, and really have no issues accepting similar characters from others. I do understand what people mean when they refer to people only showing off the perks of their stronger characters. Glioca, for example, after she separated from her ex-wife, went on a training binge. She lost the curvy figure she had to muscle and being too thin, spent all of her time exhausted and staggering around, and was so out of it from fatigue that she got swiped in the face during a fight with a dragon - something that never would have happened to her before, because she has great situational awareness. She could have healed that wound, and made sure it barely scarred, but she wanted to keep it as a mark that she herself was not infallible. She was still subject to the rules of the world, despite how strong she was. She could make mistakes, be careless. She spent a month or more after her hardcore binge recovering, and was exceptionally weak, physically, until she started taking better care of herself. I like to see the weak side of strong characters every now and again, if only because it reminds me that these characters have a more human side to them, out of their scope of power.

I originally started role-playing in the BeSeen chatrooms, specifically, one called the Sailor Moon Room. I was 11 or 12 at the time, and the post style wasn't about length or fluff, it was a speed-type RP. Fighting required you to be faster than everyone else, or post more quickly. From there, a number of us branched out to RP chatrooms on AIM, usually five or six of us, where we could add more detail to our posts and talk about things at length. After the Sailor Moon Room went down, I moved to HTML chatrooms, such as on Chatropolis, Webmaze, Pairs Palace, Chatlantis, etc. I primarily played in the White Wolf/World of Darkness rooms, though I did a brief stint in Gor as a Panther type character. Like Chris Ganale, I frequented Otaku Heaven, which is actually where he and I met. I've known him for years now, and we've ended up in a lot of role-play places together - GaiaOnline, the pokemon forum he referred to in his post. I've also role-played in a number of MMO's including Dark Ages, Ragnarok Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift, The Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, etc. For the most part, a lot of my role-play has been done inplaces like GaiaOnline. My RP career also includes (AD&D, D&D 3.0-3.5, Pathfinder, White Wolf/WoD), a lot of tabletop gaming. I never kept an 'exact' history of my role-play history, but it's pretty long and varied. I've also played, easily, a hundred or more characters over the course of my life, some for years at a time, some very briefly, and that's not even counting NPC's in my tabletop games that I'm the Dungeon Master for.

An easy fix for server congestion would probably be an idle timer log-out feature. AFK/inactive for more than 20 minutes? Automatically disconnected to make way for other individuals. It would definitely stop the people who AFK all hours of the day in Mor Dhona, which would ease up server load in general.

It still counts as a couple even though it's three people, technically, right? A'rklonn & Anthya & Glioca, enjoying a little quality time and taking in the Valentione's decorations in the Goblet.