Valence

Oh, that kind of things happens. For many reasons. 1) Maybe you are not in the mood at times. It happens. 2) Maybe it's not your thing IRL, OOCly. I know it's not mine. Thus why I don't play characters that are overly extraverted and social butterflies, though it has happened a few times I did for the challenge. 3) Maybe your character is just not into that. It makes things incredibly hard when everything you actually want to say, wouldn't fit the character personality. 4) Maybe there is nothing to be said. People just gather because they want to RP, but there is absolutely nothing and the discussions stays bland and trite as hell because nobody bothered to come with a theme. Sitting idly speaking of the weather, honestly, can be repelling. Try to find a theme maybe? For story development purposes and all. 5) Maybe you are not in the right group of friends and contacts, to be blunt. I know I personally wouldn't mesh with that myself.

Yeah but japanese toiltets powered by conjurers is way cooler dude?

You are talking about the heroes of the FF stories. Aka, the WoL in XIV. I'm mostly referring to the people depicted by the lore. All the other people. The inhabitants of that world.

Yes of course. It would be boring if all stories were about a farmer boy going on an adventure. Some powerful characters either work as you say because they started from scratch (but that's where it becomes tricky in MMOs, everyone isn't necessarily your audience and watches from the beginning, especially when realistic problems enter the equation, like a 20y old character master their art or so). Or either when they are powerful de facto, but are not the center of the spotlight (aka, mentors of sorts, see Gandalf, Auron, etc). But more than that, it mostly boils down to believability, or suspension of disbelief.

You put your finger exactly where I agree... to disagree. I think that's an annoying mistake to believe that making a character stand out is done by making them "go out of the box", making them "special". What makes a character stand out is a well rounded, fleshed out character, 3 dimensional character, not a character that is so special that they lose their very essence by being... I don't know exactly what they are actually in those cases, that's the issue. A character can be as special, out of the box, as you may want them to be, if your character is flat as a pancake and 2 dimensional, then it makes it even worse than a mundane 2 dimensional character. Because it turns them into something rubbish, unbelievable, and/or just laughable (in a bad way). But I guess that's also where you will find a whole world of difference between what makes shonen characters like Naruto "cool", and seinen characters "interesting". In the latter case, what makes your average thief interesting, is exactly because your average thief is average in the first place: all the struggles they will face, their doubts, their failures, the way they see the world, their human side. In the former case, what will make your average thief interesting is just that they will comply to be basic rules of shonen, being a teen-angst, dark brooding but all lovey goody two shoes male hero who gets angry at every injustice, and can actually change things because he is special, a chosen one, and has super powers. And compared to him indeed, your average thief, no matter how well fleshed out they will be, will pale in comparison, not because of a lesser writing, but to the contrary, because the special snowflake shonen character will suck out everything from that average character presence to concentrate it in the middle of the spotlight: the awesome one. Now you see why most people playing average characters tend to flee the former archetype like the plague. Those are the best way to turn your average character, no matter how good they are, into simple story disposable meat for the other one to shine (out of their rubbishness). Note: that's my personal, artistical taste on the matter, for once.

I'm a bit sad that you think people playing mundane characters are uninteresting. If you need to play an elite edgy dragoon to go out interact with the world, because hell no, a standard gridanian gardening botanist sure can't as hell interact with the world... And especially not his piece of Black Shroud... Which sure isn't part of the WORLD. :roll: Everyone will find their interest in different degrees of grandeur.

Or at least allege to. Lol I agree, no one follows the lore. Every RP character is a form of lore breaking. Or show me in the lorebook where it has your character in there. Respectfully, that sounds a bit disingenuous.. People are not arguing that their characters are part of the lore, they are saying that they don't clash with the lore, or don't break it. Or even bend it. I for once, think that given the correct, convoluted explanations, most jobs are playable ICly. Again, it just is a matter of how far you are willing to push suspension of disbelief. It's not black and white. That's bordering on ascribing nefarious motives to people. I don't think that kind of bullshit brings anything to the discussion at all. I thought WHM was a forbidden art, not lost?...if so there is a difference there. Either way, I have noted many dragoons calling themselves knight dragoons or retired dragoons. I saw someone call themselves a dragoon reservist, meant to go active should war start once more. Both more or less. Forbidden by the Elementals and most of Eorzea, like black magic is by everyone. I mean, it doesn't mean that your character can't 'stumble' on an amdapori soulstone somewhere. Sounds silly? Possibly. Goes against the lore? Not really, as far as I know.

I don't know. The thing is, even the statement that they use 'common hyur', is if I recall correctly, more accurately using 'the common tongue of the hyur'. It doesn't really say 'the Common Tongue of the Hyur' (emphasis on capitals). It can be anything, the common tongue of the Hyur (implied, the Hyur from Doma), for example. So, there is that.

Probably closer to the difference between old frank and modern french? It's very hard to understand. But you can still get half the words and roots, if not more.

Honestly, I just roll with all of those language being fictionnal languages. Some take inspirations from japanese traditional culture, others... less. Trying to equate them to IRL stuff is a slippery slope. There is just Auri, Common Hyur, Common Hyur (Doman), etc etc. Why do we need more? English (or japanese for the japanese audience) just happens to be the narrator language. A convenience. Using IRL languages to flavor fictionnal languages ingame is... weird to me. It's not Earth. It's Eorzea.

I for one, find the lore complying stuff to be way more interesting than special snowflakism. Just a matter of tastes and all.. Also no, Au'ra is not special snowflakism. Some things are risky considering the low amount of lore we know for Raen especially, but again, it's not like some other races haven't a clear lack of info either...

Not commenting on the other stuff since I can't really talk about it, but considering the rareness of multiple other jobs (not starting that argument, merely mentioning it), it seems more likely that she's selling to just about anyone with some proficiency (some of the "classes," not Jobs, are "ancient" anyway; Thaumaturge and Conjurer, for example), similar to how the two lalafell wearing BLM gear in the class quest are revealed in 3.0 to really just be posers. I always thought Rowena was actually addressing eccentric collectors. That's pretty much how she presents her whole shenanigans: selling to rich collectors interested in odd or obscure exotic jobs.

I'm really talking about 2.0 jobs, I didn't mean to include ninja which is 2.4, sorry for the confusion. Ninja is super mild. I can't speak too much in details of SCH since it's one of the few storylines I haven't done. I know the faeries still resort to Succor though, which is... white magic. For monk, yes, I thought about the shadow sect... Thing is... it's certainly something that made playing the job easier since 3.0 (a bit like DRG actually, when Ishgard opened and presented new things and all). Problem though, is that we don't really know how many those are. Considring that Garlemald rule over Ala-Migho, and they seem super secretive... Not sure if they are a lot of them. For all we know, SE could pull the same thing that they did for DRG...

We have to keep in mind that the common HYUR language, while probably evolving a lot over centuries, has also a strong base coming from all those previous eras. Especially the allagan one that unified pretty much everything. So there is that too.

Most of the 2.0 jobs are or have been on a slippery slope, it's nothing new. WhM, BLM, SCH and SMN especially. We only always talk about WhM, WhM, WhM as the taboo because it's the most obvious. Even Bard (not a simple minstrel), or Monk, is rather dangerous in my opinion. I would have categorized DRG with those two latter ones, but obviously now it has joined the first ones (all of the casters). I'm rather concerned for all the people playing actual monks by the way, regarding Ala-Migho slowly approaching and all that. But the thing is, again, how far you are willing to go, how far you are willing to stretch things, for that lore doesn't exactly make any job TOTALLY out of reach. A lot of people often just fail to understand how immensely powerful a lot of those jobs are, in terms of lore, because we are blinded by their balanced gameplay. Take a black mage for example, that can potentially turn into a god of destruction. It's not just a THM with bigger spells, it's a THM with a virtually infinite amount of aether at their disposal, never running out. Same for a WhM. Take a Bard, and the dreadful power of their songs over legions of people, and what a single one can achieve. Are Dragoons or else, that different from those? I am not even sure.

Well, it's playing something very special, numbers or not, to begin with. Even more so with that new lore, you can't really cut it. I think there is actually a lot of interesting wiggle room and very fascinating stuff to be had around trainees actually. All the people that are selected, trained, go through impossible trials and arduous, humongous tasks in the thin hope of one day maybe becoming a full fledged dragoon. I think there is a lot of interesting drama and RP shenanigans to be had not only with those trainees (think Estinien and what happens in his story, in Tales From Heavensward), but also with all those fallen dragoons, all the people that failed to pass that incredibly hard selection (you bet it's harsh, not only because the lorebook says it, but because an average of 30 active DRG?). All the hope, and broken dreams. All the social status shifting, glory and fame just at the grasp of the hand, only to fail at the end. All of what can also be had around your average dragon killers in the convictory, not Knight Dragoons, but that can be noticed. Elevated to heights in the ishgardian society. All the vertical societal struggle in Ishgard is rather fascinating, and everything that actually happens around the Order of the Knight Dragoons who accept everyone from any birth, commoner or noble, is what I find the most interesting, not necessarily playing a full fledged, super edgy elite soldier. In short yes, I think there is still a lot to do around all of those other people, the not quite Knight Dragoons, but that still hold similar abilities, their jump, etc. tl;dr: play DRG trainees, people aspiring to become one and very good with a lance, fallen almost full fledged DRGs and what you have. Those are nameless. They fix most of those issues.

Apparently it's on waiting list already for EU stores (but still available on the french and german localized stores).

For those that live in Germany or France, you will have to go through the localized portals of the website (not the EU one). While the book title and description and everything is translated, the book language is stated to be 'english' (in tiny letters). I took me a lot of time to figure that out, after having left me in a huge state of confusion. Funny thing is also that you can order it through the EU portal for France oversea territories, but not mainland, which is a bit hilarious (and stupid). Edit: apparently the shipping is free for mainland France (yay national mail).

I don't have the scan to check it again, but I seem to remember it was stated rather approximately along those lines, that they have to lead their tribe on the way to greatness or something. Which doesn't necessarily mean that they are tribe chiefs, but merely leaders. Which also tends to comfort me in saying that they have a very central social status to the tribe, and not just on breeding. But maybe I'm wrong.

Will you? I personally will because that's how my character would react to someone claiming to be a special snowflake. But that's probably where I'll shift to OOC discussion because it's never really sane to treat a divergence of RP opinions ICly like that, with one side claiming things while the other says "yeah, yeah, cuckoo crazy". It's highly unhealthy. Generally, when both sides disagree with how to treat that kind of issue, then better to part ways happily, with no hard feelings and a mutual respect. Don't get me wrong, I have no stakes in that. I always try to be the most neutral and lore abiding possible. I also happen to have a good RP friend that is playing a dragoon, and the nightmare it will cause is also impacting me.

The lore book says that Nunh are leaders in Seeker tribes as a standard in direct contradiction to the original lore post. I don't remember anything like that? They don't say outright they are leaders... Unless there is a scan I missed...

Two rather different things actually. A simple dragoon is called that way when someone kills a single dragon. It's a title, or a way to describe those who make the deed. Those dragoons can be any class, mage, swordsman, anything. A Knight Dragoon is the military elite branch of Ishgard knights. Has probably killed a dragon at some point, but maybe not. Lots of dragoon knights (or just mercs or adventurers) in Ishgard. But 10-30 Knight Dragoons only though.

As I said before, it's not much different than for WhM and BLM nd jobs like that. Your reasons are perfectly valid to me in terms of lore. A conjurer can perfectly stumble on an old amdapori soulstone for whatever reason, even if it seems highly unlikely. Otherwise yes. It's as special snowflaky as claiming to be part of the few padjali WhM and whatnot. Retired DRG or not.

Exactly. And yes, you can probably find convoluted justifications for anything. It's the way RP works, and how the lore is always permeable, organic, and certainly not black and white. So yes, you can find reasons, the same way you can find reasons to play a WhM. The knights dragoons are not the only ones to fight against Dravanians...

Isn't Widargelt supposed to be one of the few rare or only survivor of the Light sect? Not sure for the Dark sect though... Because if their job implies such a high amount of casualty, if you start churning out lower level dragoons that can maybe not even jump correctly or whatever, then you just send them all to the slaughter.