MMORPG Background
I don't have a terribly diverse track record as far as MMORPG loyalty goes, but I do have a demonstrated tendency to get horrendously addicted to a single MMO and essentially live on it for several years. Since I'm feeling a tad verbose today, I'll still give the MMOs I graced for all of a day to maybe a week an honorable mention. Ah--Don't stop reading because of that. Literally, any game that I played for more than a week, was a game I played for several years, and those are very few and far between.
Anyway, it all began way back in 8th grade. It was, I believe, the year 2000. I was 13, and I had a friend who was very fortunate to have a computer in his room. On that computer, he showed me a little something called Everquest. We played it a few times at his house, and eventually I talked my mother in to letting me get the game for our family PC. I played for maybe a month, when suddenly my Iksar got stuck in some really dark sewers, and I couldn't figure out how to get out. My interest dwindled from there, and I went back to playing my single-player console games.
Having been a fan of the Final Fantasy franchize since I was about 10 years old, and having just entered in to Japanese language and culture studies in high school, the year came when I heard that Final Fantasy XI was going to be an MMORPG. I was lucky to be in Japan in the summer of 2003, and I picked up some merchandise... including the game. I held off on installing, and when it came out in North America a few short months later, I was quick to snatch it up. After a while, the Japanese copy of Final Fantasy XI turned out to be rather useful, since you couldn't type in Japanese characters without it.
I was a total noob to the experience, as you might have gathered from my derpy reasoning for no longer playing Everquest. Additionally, I was playing alone. Eventually, a nice linkshell picked me up. I assume I looked pretty lost. I didn't exactly have a lot of friends in the linkshell, the few friends I did make responded well to my constant and probably annoying insistence that "it would be fun to RP here." That thought stuck, and together with players called Ayvaen and Shiromiro, we formed a new linkshell for roleplayers. We were CantaPerMe on the Lakshmi server. My name was Kaahi.
It was long enough ago that I can't remember exactly when I quit the game. But I know I was playing for a few years. I'd place my departure probably in late 2005, or early 2006. My characters weren't exactly right with the lore, but it was a good time anyway. Besides, in CantaPerMe, I met people like Xenedra, allgivenover, and at least two others on this forum that I haven't sought out by username yet (Vere' and Mhuir', I know you're around~). I don't have much to show for my time in FFXI, though. The dozen or so animated 8-bit avatars I was known for are nowhere to be found, and... I wasn't big on screencaps or videos at the time. I did, however, hunt down the model viewer edit of a Mithra and a Hume I did before presenting it as a male Mithra. I also did a bit of a rap. >.>
Anyway, that time ended and I was MMO-less for a while, but I had an itch to play one for a very long time. During my time in FFXI, World of Warcraft came out. I decided to try it out, and I hated it. Therefore, I never went back to it.
A few years later, my girlfriend and I decided to play an MMORPG together. I was happy to finally get the chance to get her in to something I enjoyed. We played the F2P game, Rappelz, and together, we roleplayed constantly, with 4 characters each. We didn't join anyone else in that game.
That lasted for several months, when one of our friends from a convention told us a new game was scheduled to release in the states in 2009. This was the beginning of the end of my productive adulthood.
In late 2009, Aion came out in North America and Europe. I'd been following it for some time when it entered the first closed beta stage. I was forced to a roll an Elyos for the first closed beta, but by the second one, the Asmodian race opened up. I quickly discovered which one I favored, and I sought out an RP legion on Aion RP Site. My first character was named Isceroth. While I had no desire to do anything as far as leadership was concerned, I was very active in the RP community. I joined an Asmodian RP legion, and was happily immersed for a few months.
I didn't quit. It's sort of a matter of pride for me that I never once took more than a week long break from Aion, and I remained a fiercely loyal fanboy to the game until quite recently. What happened after that first few months, however, was a near collapse of the legion I'd joined. It was the legion, Symphony of Storms on the then Lumiel server. When our Brigade General (Soren Miren) left, a new leader took up the reigns, and I stepped in to the role of an officer. It wasn't long before he, too, tired of Aion and moved on to other things, and I soon found myself at the head of the legion.
It was both stressful and rewarding. It was also time consuming as all hell, and something I'd like to try to avoid in the future. I have the tendency to want to become very involved with the things I'm passionate about, and often times that places me in a leadership role. I'm trying very hard to avoid being a linkshell leader after ARR releases, and likewise as far as an expedition leader in ArcheAge is concerned. But I digress. As much as I gripe about my time as a legion leader in Aion, I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. I led the legion for three years, and together we accomplished a lot of things, both on the Lumiel server, and the server it was merged in to later in the game's life--Israphel. I left the game in February, and intend to return for casual RP later this month.
I do have some fanworks to show for Aion. I made 50 or so
, won both official video contests, made some "art," and even finished a cosplay that I never got photos of because even in costume, I'm always the only one who takes any pictures. I made a lot of friends--reuniting after several years with allgivenover. I'm still in contact with a lot of my legion.
While I was enjoying Aion for close to four years, I met the sort of games who jumped from game to game to game, and as a consequence, I did try out a few other MMORPGs, but none of them ever stuck. I played Mabinogi for a short while, and Guild Wars 2, then The Secret World. FFXIV did come out while I was playing Aion, but I didn't try it out. I can't say I was really interested--sad to say.
I left Aion because activity was dwindling, and another MMORPG grabbed me by the throat and dragged me over to its field. That was and still is ArcheAge. I was able to secure a Korean account to play the game, and still do so just about every day. I'm fairly certain this is my new niche game, and will be my main MMORPG for some time, provided it doesn't flop and ARR doesn't blow it out of the water during its war for my interests. Since the game isn't in English yet, I've been translating as much of the lore as I can, and I've even had all of one RP sessions in the game. I'm not intending on leading an expedition when the time comes, but I am going to serve as best I can as the admin of ArcheAgeRoleplay.com. Right now I'm commonly known as the Wanderer.
I obviously don't have access to ARR's beta, or I would have dabbled plenty by now, but I have been actively preparing for an RP debut once launch rolls around as the Miqo'te, Rakka'sae Kuhn.
RP Experience
I started RPing when I was ten. A friend of mine from school moved away from Minnesota to Maine, and we decided to keep in contact through the internet. Back then, we both had AOL on dial-up. So, we primarily kept in contact via IMs. Soon enough we started to roleplay. I can't remember exactly why or how, but it came to be that we planted the seed to invent an entire world based on a huge smattering of fictional environments and settings that we liked--most notably, Final Fantasy worlds--starting with VII's. The world was like a big crazy crossover, but all of the characters were original--with all of the protagonists of each of the games dead and gone.
I stopped RPing this with my friend after we fell out of contact, but soon resumed with my then soon-to-be-girlfriend. I was involved with this little universe of ours for 12 years, and that girl helped me to keep it alive for 8 of those 12 years.
We stopped once we got in to Aion. Once we had that tangible world, and we both were heavily involved, there was no sense in keeping our custom RP rolling. So we lost ourselves in that game like we had once briefly lost ourselves in Rappelz--and it was so much more engaging because there were so many people to speak with and interact with. This was my then girlfriend's first real experience with an MMORP community, and it was my second, having played with several roleplayers in my high school years on Final Fantasy XI.
Unfortunately, my girlfriend and I broke up last year, and I had a terrible time trying to roleplay. I wasn't feeling it like I used to, and admittedly, I've only just started to feel some passion for RP again, in recent months. I've roleplayed on and off in Aion since leaving it, just to give the new Aion players someone to play with. I've also roleplayed once or twice in ArcheAge and am working on possible backstories that will receive their final polish once we have some official translations.
And of course, I've been soothing my RP itch with conversations with the player behind Rakka'li Kuhn, who is the reason I'm here.
Character Ideas/Info
Well, as I stated earlier, I'm here because of a friend, and because of the dynamic duo we've been planning. I know that ARR will probably be his new MMORPG, while mine will probably be ArcheAge--meaning he'll be around a hell of a lot more than I will. Because we both acknowledge this, our characters are by no means equal, but they are still a team bound by something a little deeper than friendship.
If you haven't heard this from him yet, our characters are twin Miqo'te brothers. Mine is Rakka'sae, also known as just "Sae." He's a voluntary mute. Now, before you shake your head at me and start thinking I'm going to end up being a wallflower who turns and complains that nobody ever RPs with him, let me explain why I chose to be a mute. I did it for the challenge.
In Aion, Isceroth was a huge challenge for me because I had never played a "loner" type of cliche character. Yet, I knew that being anti-social wasn't any excuse to shirk the responsibility of actively engaging other people in roleplay. I set up plenty of accidents and events that forced my anti-social character to talk to other people, and I still feel that I adequately maintained the fact that he was, in fact, not full of any measure of social grace.
Rakka'sae is my next challenge. He's not going to be anti-social like Isceroth was by any means. In fact, he's quite social. But, due to a traumatic event in his youth, he's sworn not to use his words again. I'm going to be using a lot of descriptive language to convey his body language, and of course having him write from time to time. I know the mute thing has been done to death, but I hope to put my own unique spin on it in execution. Going in to this with an RP partner also makes the task a lot easier, because that partner can more than likely convey what his brother cannot, with words.
How Did You Learn About Us
Every major MMORPG has at least one RP community. I've checked out the site a few times before, but mostly while following links from friends. I know a handful of people on the site, and I'm sure I'm familiar with more than I actually have knowledge of at the moment. I see some familiar names floating around on the forums.
You're not hard to find!
What Kind of RPer Are You Aiming To Be?
That depends. It's kind of a relative question. I think I'll spend a vast majority of my time in ARR roleplaying. I'm not all that interested in the gameplay right at the moment. However, I won't be on ARR religiously either. I'd guess I'll be on 2-4 days of the week for a few hours each, after launch. So comparatively, I might look like a light roleplayer.
Real Life Information
Oh, we'll see. I don't want to overshare to a community of mostly strangers. Perhaps once we get to know each other better. For now, the basics will have to suffice. My name is pending a legal change, but for now it's Nik, and I'm a male. I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I have my A.A.S. in Interactive Design, buuuuut I can't find a job in the field for the life of me, so I spend my time at an entry level data entry job where I listen to audiobooks and fight the urge to sleep at my desk.
I do have the tendency to try to meet up with people I encounter online, so don't be freaked out if you say "oh, I'm from Chicago," and I go "LET'S MEET SOON! YOU'RE ONLY 7 HOURS AWAY!" I'm quite harmless--also poor, so don't try to rob me (you'll only run away with my debts).
That'll be my burden, actually. Li and I are two different players. He lives in a completely different timezone than I do, in fact. Well--not polar opposite timezones, but CST vs EST. We're nowhere near each other. I expect we'll do a small bit of coordination as far as Sae's communication goes, but I don't want to pin him down with "official translator duty." I intend on using descriptive narrative. Thankfully, the Miqo'te have the added bonuses of feline ears and tails for additional expression / body language. Worse comes to worse, my emotes might be pseudo preemptive meta, allowing other characters to decide whether or not they understand Sae's body language. (ie - Rakka'sae grimaces and cocks his head to the side, nose scrunched and eyes narrowing to slits. It was clear he didn't like something about [insert Name].)