Blade

Actually I think people just suggested you talk to Kylin. But even if I didn't know that, you tell it to me straight in your opening lines. I am thus confused as to where exactly, then, I am calling you out for doing something we suggested, when in fact, you open in saying that you aren't going to do what we had suggested?

If it is just a website, why then, is there a huge post on the RPC announcing it? I can guarantee that neither Zam nor GamerEscape went to each other's boards to write anything similar to the post we have here. You know what they did? They just went and made their own site, and went about their business. I don't think anything here would pretend to lay claim and have dominion on the entire FFXIV RP community, certainly not Kylin. This site is a hub. You don't have to like the hub, and you can make your own. Making a big ol post talking about the things that haven't worked with this hub and how that lead to you deciding to make your own is, antagonistic in nature, and yes, it is divisive. There was nothing stopping you from just doing it and going about advertising it on your own. It was unnecessary for this letter to be written. As you have indicated already, no one should hold you to blame for starting your own RPC. Why, then, do you feel it necessary to make such a declaration? Instead of just "doing your own thing," you write a big long letter about what it hasn't work and how you are forced and left with no choice but to make your own website. You also cite comments from Back Stage twice in a negative tone. Then you try and cover your tracks and say it was all in good fun and for the better of the community, make us forget the inherently spiteful comments made prior. I'm not saying I won't visit your website. But this was not a mature way to go about it, and that does not reflect well on its leadership.

(My bad, misunderstood the OP!)

*** It was in the late afternoon in Ulâdah when a hooded Hyur figure stepped off from the elevator leading to the Airship docks. The man stretched, his arms, still stiff from the flight, and slowly began to move through the Gold Court and moving towards the Sapphire Avenue Exchange. As the figured walked, he kept his hood low; a man who didnât want to be seen, clearly, and for anyone know whatâs good for them, obviously someone not to be associated with. The Hyur didnât normally travel through Ulâdah wearing such garb, but given his intent and destination, felt that it would be best. Passing through an alleyway before heading into the Sapphire Avenue Exchange, the Hyurâs determined step slowed upon seeing three children dressed in rags hiding in a secluded corner. The children were huddled together⦠and from the welts on their faces, he could see that they had been beaten. One of the children, a girl, had one of her eyes swollen shut. The hooded figure glanced up the road, and then back to the children. He looked upon with a myriad of expressions; pity, anger, disgust, all wrapped up into one. After some internal deliberation, the Hyur glanced up and down the alleyway to make sure no one was paying attention to him, and he approached the children. The children reared back in fear at his sudden approach, as they had grown accustomed to the beating from adults. As the Hyur came upon them, he paused a moment, sizing them up, before speaking, âI havenât seen a much sorrier excuse for Thieves in quite a long time.â The children seemed shocked at his comments at first, and then their eyes narrowed at him, angrily. The Hyur paused, taking them in, âAt most there should be only one of you looking this bad,â he said, gesturing to the girl. âAnd what happened with her? She fall and you all leave her behind?â A young boy jumps up, seemingly the leader of the group, and the oldest of the bunch, looking to be in his early teens. The boy yelled, âWhatâs it to you, asshole!?â The Hyur held his hands wide in a welcoming gesture. âStrong words for someone who is doing it all wrong!â The boy yelled and rushed the Hyur with a swing of his fists, which the Hyur easily dodged. Grabbing the boy by the back of his shirt, he slams the boy onto his chest and plants his knee into the boyâs back, holding him down. âYou need more fear,â the hooded man began. âYou donât just go up and rush someone who is stronger than you. Especially if you are going to let them know you are planning to attack them.â The boy yelled back, âIâm not scared of you, you jerk!â He struggled but couldnât get away. The Hyur pushes his knee into the kidâs back more, yelling, âYou should be! Fear is a natural instinct, you know why? It keeps you alive. It keeps you cautious. It means you grasp the circumstances of your situation betterâ,â the Hyur said, trailing off as he looked up and saw the rest of the children had surrounded him, terrified, but their hands balled up into fists, ready to go. The Hyur gives a roguish grin and stands up off the boy, extending his hands in a soothing gesture. âWell, at least you stick together. Thatâs something. That and, you can recognize moments of opportunity.â The boy scrambles to his feet, kicking up at the man, but missing. âJust what in the hells do you want!?â The Hyur smiled, and looked out of the alleyway towards the Sapphire Avenue Exchange, and began to walk, moving right past the children surrounding him. âCome with me.â The boy yelled, throwing his arms down at his side as he did so. âThe hells like weâre doing that!â âThen donât,â the Hyur said, looking back at them over his shoulder. âKeep on as you have. Iâm not the one starving at the side of the road. Not anymore.â As the Hyur walked away, the children looked back and forth between each other, then their leader. The boy leader shrugged and grumbled, âGods damn it. Come on,â the boy said and he waved to the other children and they followed the Hyur. The Hyur man peered around the corner and out at the Silver Avenue. The children ran to his side. âOkay⦠so who messed you up so bad?â The children pointed to a specific food merchant and the Hyur grumbled, âRuppa Shuppa? Are you serious? You picked him? No wonder, then.â He looked down at the kids, who were glaring up at him and the Hyur sighed. âI want you all to pay attention, and seize the opportunity when it presents itself. There will be times that someone has to take the hit for the team. But with some timing⦠you can have some sort of damage control.â The Hyur glances out into the street. âThe one takes the hit always gets extra food, by the way. Now, watch, and strike when the opportunity is right.â The Hyur set out from the alleyway, with the children watching. He casually made is way over to the merchantâs stall, Ruppa Shuppa. He thought to himself, I should have told them to pick better targets, too. The Lalafell merchant had several fruits laid out on his counter, and was leaned back in his chair reading through the latest copy of the Mythril Eye. The Hyur made his way past the stand, grabbing an alligator pear in the process. He didnât look back as he her the merchant stir, shouting âThief! Thief!â in the process. The Hyur closed his eyes and braced. He knew what was coming. An explosion of pain erupted from the back of his head, quickly being replaced with a warm sensation, as the Lalafell lept from his stall and clubbed him in the back of the head. The Hyur stumbled forward, his vision blurring, dropping the alligator pear to the ground. He nearly stumbled to fall onto his face, but managed to keep himself on his two feet, his hood dropping in the process. He spun around to see the Lalafell readying another strike, but upon seeing the Hyurâs face, the Lalafell stopped mid-swing, dumbfounded. The Hyur looked only momentarily at the children in the alleyway, and made eye contact with them. They hesitated, and then quickly began to sneak over to the merchantâs stall, now unmanned. Ruppa Shuppa was caught off-guard with the Hyur, and growled, âWhat do you think you are doing, thief?â The Hyur laughed, picking up the alligator pear. ââ¦whatâs really funny is that these days, I can actually pay you.â âThen why didnât you?â âIâm a sucker for nostalgia,â the Hyur said with a roguish grin. âAt your age, though, I can get you thrown into the jails, or worse,â Ruppa Shuppa glared. The Hyur looked beyond Ruppa Shuppa as the children were grabbing armfuls of food⦠there are were several people nearby but all their attention was focused on the exchange between the Hyur and the merchant. âAlright, alright, point taken. Here,â the hyur said, reaching into his gil purse and pulling out several coins, glancing up at the children standing with as much food as they could carry, with the boy leader looking attentively at the Hyur, his face with a concerned expression. The Hyur shook his head and looked down at his gil purse, âAh, sorry⦠miscounted. Here. This should do it.â Ruppa Shuppa glared, at him, not even counting the money. âJust a moment, you.â But the Hyur was already walking away, throwing his hood back up, and wasnât stopping. Ruppa Shuppa watched him walk away for some time, until he finally remembered the characterâs name. With a frown, the Lalafell recalled it, âAurickâ¦.â His moment of reverie swiftly came to a close the moment he turned and got a good look at his stall. *** Dusk had begun to set in when old Heaucreubiont, an Elezen, noticed a tall hooded figure looking over the decrepit merchantâs home, or what was left of it, at least. It struck him as odd, for someone to take such an interest in place filled with such a dark history. In itâs prime, over ten years ago, the home had served as a storefront on the first floor, with the second and third floors purchased for the familyâs living and crafting quarters. Built into the side of the cityâs states walls, the home was just one of many shops; however, in Ulâdah, this was prime real estate. Now the home stood, untouched, for nearly a decade. Time had taken the toll the home; a chair was overturned, shelves had broken and fallen, a door completely unhinged due to bandits, and the whole of it covered in thick sand. Now it had a strange man looking it over, with a face Heaucreubiont could not place. Perhaps he meant to pilfer the home? Heaucreubiont couldnât be sure. But, as elderly men are oft to, he decided to stick his nose into anotherâs business. Approaching the hooded man, Heaucreubiont spoke, âYou should move along, my friend. There is nothing for you to see here. Please, donât disturb this place.â The hooded man looked to Heaucreubiont, revealing a male Hyur with blonde hair. âMy apologies. I have not come to disturb. I merely have⦠interest, in purchasing this shop.â The Elezen laughed. âMy friend⦠I can tell from the look of your robes that you are not⦠financially sound enough⦠to purchase that land. Perhaps you would be interested in a retainer? Set up a shop in the Market Wards?â The Elezen paused, shaking his head and looking back towards the shop. âBesides, I donât believe it is for sale.â The Hyur raised an eyebrow. âSo the sultanate prefers it like this? Letting it waste away?â The Elezen shook his head. âItâs not that⦠the family that used to live there was a generous merchant family, the Demircans. But one day, they just up and left.â âLeft? What do you mean?â The Hyur responded, sounding not at all surprised by the story. âIndeed, they left⦠for lands unknown. Better prospects elsewhere was what I was told. But who really knows. Their youngest son was left here, though. Said that he wouldnât survive the journey, and left him in the care of the sultanate.â âI bet they took good care of him, then,â the Hyur replied, not sounding convinced by his own words. âWell, no⦠I mean, the boy ran awayâ¦,â Heaucreubiont said before pausing and looking the Hyur man straight in the eyes. âIâm sorry, I should not speak of this further. It is a sad tale. One that is best left unremembered.â The Hyur looked at the Elezen man, appearing offended at first, and then forced his face to lighten. âPerhaps so. But I bid you answer my question, why does the sultanate keep it off the market?â The Elezen looked down. âI canât truly say. Technically the sultanate owns it, and the officer overseeing it has not made any motions to re-establish or open it to the public. All the goods on the inside have either been looted or sold. I donât know⦠maybe they want to keep it as a reminder to those merchants who step out of line. The family wasnât well likedâ,â the Elezen stopped and shook his head. âI really donât want to talk about this anymore. Iâm sorry.â The Hyur raised his hand, in a calming gesture. âItâs fine. I didnât mean to make you feel uncomfortable,â he said, glancing back at the home. âI shall take my leave now. May you have a pleasant night.â And with a short bow, the Hyur made an abrupt turn and briskly walked away from the scene. As Heaucreubiont watched the man walk into the street, he found something odd about the man that he could not place. Eventually he shrugged, grumbling to himself and going back to his business, as the Hyur vanished into the bustling crowds. *** As night fell, the Hyur moved swiftly through the alleyways, until coming across a particular one that he seemed to be searching for. He swiftly began to climb it, confidently, giving no indication that he was trespassing to those who might see him, but rather that he was supposed to be there. His eyes came fixed to Dalamudâs taunting vision, looming in the sky, itâs crimson red glow shining through the night. He stood there, studying it from his vantage point, turning over the events of the day in his head. He let his hood drop, and his blonde hair fell loose. The man, who now called himself Blade Belisaire, rubbed the back of his head with a loud groan. âGrumpy old asshole,â he uttered. Blade turned and sat down against a wall, gently letting his head come to rest, gazing up at the red moon shining in the night, bathed in its crimson light. It was almost enough to mesmerize him, but he shook the temptation off and reached into his bag, and pulled out the alligator pearl from before. He brought out a culinary knife, and split it in two, and began to spoon out the thick, paste-like food onto the knife, licking it off every so often. Why he had come to see his familyâs old home now, of all times, he did not know. Why would he let such events, such history, draw him back in times like this? Why did he ask that elderly man the story of the family that lived thereâhis family, when he knew the story perfectly wellâhe had lived it, after all. Why⦠why, indeed? Staring up at Dalamud, he allowed himself a moment to be truthful with himself. Perhaps, with the Seventh Umbral Era drawing nigh as it is, he felt motivated to be honest with himself. If it fell now, today, in a month from now⦠he might not get a chance. He knew damn well why he had come. He wanted to be told something different about his past. He wanted to believe there was something he had missed. That he hadnât just been abandoned by his family. What memories he had remaining of his family, distant though they were, didnât lead him to believe they were that selfish. He had never believed it, or⦠never wanted to believe it. He had never let himself decide which it truly was, between the two. Perhaps it really was just as he had always been led to believe it to be. He just wanted to know. Before Dalamud, and the Garleans, come bearing down upon them in a firestorm. He thought of the boy, leading that group of starving thieves, and how the boy had looked at him in the end⦠in almost some kind of admiration. It wasnât a look that Blade was used to. Not at all. He wasnât even sure he liked it. Because he hoped that the kid didnât turn out like him. He was somewhat regretting his decision to help the children. What had he taught them, after all? Did he teach them that itâs right to steal from the smallfolk, and take what isnât theirs? Or did he teach them how to get by in a harsh world, which may only get harsher? Blade finished with the alligator pear and tossed itâs skin to the side. He licked the last of the green substance off his culinary knife as he stood up and walked over to a railing, looking out over Dalamud, still thinking about the boy. Whatâs more wrong? Letting kids starve at the side of the road? Teaching kids to steal? Or trying to tell these kids they should work for their food, which for a child with no money, is really impossible? The world is wrong. Itâs all wrong. Everything youâll do will be considered wrong by someone else. But then whatâs right? Maybe nothing. He shook his head, to push out the abstract thoughts in his head that usually lead to nowhere. He pulled out Seleneâs personal linkpearl and glanced at it, debating over whether or not to give her a call. He was embarrassed to go through with it, though. Hadnât been quite the gentleman lately⦠always ending up in bed together. Maybe he really was just as bad as he thought he was? He put the pearl away. Instead of calling her, he glared at Dalamud, and as he did, an anger swelled up in him. He had spent so long working to get to where he was at now. With the impending invasion and Dalamud, all that was threatened to be taken away. While he watched others pray to the Twelve to deliver them salvation, clearly, it hadnât done much to help them thus far. Dalamud was still coming. It would arrive. And Blade felt it would be soon. He would probably die. Thatâs why he wanted to help whoever he could, before it happened. Thatâs why he wanted to find something about his family. Maybe that too, is why he wanted to be with Selene. As Dalamudâs crimson glow radiated in Bladeâs eyes, he knew that he feared Dalamud, and what it would take from him. He didnât fight this fear. He⦠welcomed it. Because as he told the boy earlier in the day, fear keeps you alive. Although the risk annihilation was high, Blade knew⦠to accept it, would be to accept defeat. To fight and not believe there to be salvation, you will not truly fight. You would have already forfeited your life. You will die. Surely alone he couldnât stand up against what was coming. The prophets telling of the Seventh Umbral Era had said that much. Could he but find others who would stand with him.

I don't think I ever said anything really with regards to your story. I'm only talking in terms of official lore.

Well, the thing is they specifically didn't want this to be an FFXI sequel... I really actually hate for them to backtrack and change that at some point. I really do love XI, with all of its lore and the adventures there (and I do play it and enjoy it more than XIV to this day), but despite that I really want the entities to stay separate. Mainly just there is so much different lore here that I want to see that expanded on in the future. The other thing is that while XI hasn't really shown all the lore there is to be had in the game (there are other continents in the world of Vana'diel that we don't have access to, but they are all named), I don't think placing Eorzea in Vana'diel would be the wisest of ideas because then you have to conform XIV's lore to XI to make sure the two stay consistent, and with how in-depth XI went into on things, it would end up drastically influencing XIV's story as well. But a cross-dimensional thing would be very interesting, as XIV could keep it's lore, and yet, still be able to visit Vana'diel someday. An expansion to XIV where adventurers could visit Vana'diel would be very interesting indeed. Galka tails would return!

I believe that SE has stated that 'officially,' the worlds are entirely separated. The races looking similar with similar backgrounds was apparently only done to be friendly to those XI players going to XIV. ... this is not to say, however, that this will stay this way. In fact I think it is very possible that the two may be linked, although perhaps it is not the same world but an alternate timeline/dimension. Adventurers of Vana'diel are well versed in multiple dimensions... dynamis, promyvions, the new "parallel" world to Vana'diel, Abyssea, and also time travel and a whole separate timeline. To consider the possibility that there is yet another world, would not be too far fetched in XI's terms (we have yet to see multiple dimensions in Eorzea). I am definitely curious about something shantotto says though in XI, after she travels and visits "another world very similar to Vana'diel." People have suggested it to explain her appearance in Dissidia, but I think it could also explain Abyssea, and a possible link to Eorzea if one is there. Time will tell.

Square-Enix, while it has a high amount of acclaim among the game community, developer like any other. And they are not immune. It took one bad movie on (Squaresoft's) end to nearly lose their merge with Enix, and they were on the verge of tanking. Now, they are reporting a 75% decrease in profit this year from last year. That is huge. If you don't think that pressure is on them right now... I want this game to be good. I really do. But at this point SE has not put their best foot forward. FFXI was also released to generally positive reviews whereas FFXIV has been released with mostly negative reviews. Even the game's interface isn't up to par with FFXI's... FFXI had its problems, but when they released it, it was completed and what came later were adjustments and expansions. FFXIV isn't done with beta. And Square-Enix wouldn't give us all an extra 30 days out of the goodness of their heart. Game is already being discounted in japanese stores by 20% for both versions. They need to fix this fast.

Pearls were actually manufactured in XI, although you won't find that said in the game. They most ignore it. The actual line about them being invented at all comes from the art book that Elmer the Pointy translated, and he discusses it on Limit Break radio. I think the art book is called "Life of Vana'diel" if I'm not mistaken, and it included a history of all the nations and a lot of lesser known facts about the world, like where the name Lungo-Nango comes from (a fairly influential tarutaru in Windurst's history, but you never really see him mentioned in game, aside from his name on currency). As Elmer translated it out, it comes out to be: "563 â Medada invents the Linkshell. (Though not as powerful as todayâs models)" This was during the fourth Yagudo war. Elmer also is sort of a big deal and does a lot of English-Japanese dialogues, I think he went to Vanafest and I believe he has had some talks with the developers as well, but I'm not positive. I think he is with Zam now. So I don't think this is something that he would just throw out there. Also, I'm not putting this out to say that everyone should follow the lore in their specific RP group, especially since this doesn't directly translate to FFXIV. Just brainstorming here and trying to give people ideas. Personally I side with the audio-only argument... although I do think the visual component would be nice, I try to stick pretty close to the lore myself, and until I see a visual component to the LS in game I err on the side that function doesn't exist. But to each their own.

I think it'd be somewhat safe to assume that linkpearls are similar in their background and function to FFXI's pearls. XI's were manufactured and you can see a piece of SE artwork showing a character using a linkpearl here. http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/The_D ... _(Volume_2) in addition to the line of text where the author writes "The steady voice of Roger, my fellow exorcist, spoke to me through the linkpearl held to my ear. " Honestly they seem like fantasy cell phones to me. As for them being manufactured, Elmer (for those from XI who may have heard of him) translated that out of a Japan-only artbook where it said the first one was developed by a tarutaru and marked it as a historical event. How much of this can carry over in FFXIV is a little bit unknown, given that the games have different sets of lore and whatnot. Given though that they function the same (and one of the starting Limsa NPCs tosses one at you, giving the apearrance that they are small) I think it's safe to assume that they are very similar to their XI counterparts. So yeah, a pearl would certainly not be something big, even just going by one of the early Limsa cutscenes alone.

This definitely does strike me as a very rude resolution to people who would like to do this. There is a third option which you don't seem to want to acknowledge: if an RPer RPs as a character in a canon RP LS, and makes an effort to keep these side activities secret or otherwise not bring them up when they interact with non-canon-RPers. If someone RPs their character in such a way to not bring such matters into question, where is your issue? You'd be choosing to not RP with someone on the entire basis that out-of-character you have decided you don't like their other RP activities Not that hard to do. My whole RP LS in XI has managed this. The game doesn't treat you like much of a hero in XI for doing all the things you do, NPCs seem largely unaware of your activities. It really isn't all that difficult. For example, to not discuss the ending of the Rise of the Zilart plotline, we (IC) decided that It requires some creativity but honestly, if someone finds a way to do it, so that it doesn't interfere at all with your RP, again, who are you to say they shouldn't be allowed to RP with non-canon-RPers. If the only thing that is keeping them away from RPing with you is things that they do outside of your personal IC interactions with them, you are basically choosing to just exclude them for OOC info you have on them and not because of anything they actually did to you.

This actually is a big part of my own RP group that I still run in FFXI. In many ways we approach our RP as a 'retelling' of the story in FFXI and when we feel that we have told all the stories that can be told in XI, the same group will move to XIV and presumably follow the same structure. But in many ways our group has modeled much of the 'Persistent Party' mold that you have with most FF RPGs. It started out with three RPers, and then it got larger, bringing in more members, etc. Since, in a way, this RP group doubles as a mission static, there is an active role on my part (since I schedule) to set events such as missions and quests (which have real IC importance to us) on specific days when all members can attend and so that people don't get left out of the storyline. More or less, for us, the party dynamic was born when a group of adventurers mutually bore witness to an Ahriman telling of the return of the Shadow Lord (Nation missions 2-3). It's been a lot of fun actually, since you get this mix of adventurers who aren't really all that great friends at first but witness horrible news of the Shadow Lord's return and all of them can't just sit idly by and watch as Vana'diel gets destroyed, so they have to learn to get along and grow together, which is what has happened in this LS. How the game treats cutscenes has always been an issue since it sets your character in the spotlight and as the sole hero of Vana'diel... especially awkward since many of the missions that these cutscenes happen on you can't even do solo if you tried. But part of what is fun about the storyline is to be the characters shown in the cutscenes, lots of epic stuff happens in those... as a result we have people sort of fudge it and assume that characters in the cutscene are addressing our group and not just one individual. It is not the smoothest option but people like this one, you get the best of both worlds I suppose. Bad parts about this set-up: it potentially can discourage new members. Someone might miss out when we fought the Shadow Lord, but arrive in time to defeat the Zilart princes. In cases such as this we try to not have characters flaunt their victories... instead of talking about how WE in particular defeated the Shadow Lord and poking at new people about how they did NOT, we talk about the return and defeat of the Shadow Lord as common knowledge. We handle the Divine Might RP in a similar fashion... we aren't going to be pointing out to new RPers later on "check out my fancy earring that you don't have." Generally, yeah, we don't do things that would upset people for having missed out on earlier stuff. Likewise our characters don't see themselves as the predestined heroes of Vana'diel hand-picked by the Goddess to save the world... our characters treat themselves more like they are regular people thrust into epic adventures largely against their will. Everyone was really shocked when But even in that case, thoughts dissipated after one of us said "Just... don't think about it. I don't like thinking that I'm following on some predestined path." And that was that. As with how our group interacts with others, we are the only FFXI RP LS on Siren and so I can't speak for how this would've worked. Another group might not like RPing with people who play themselves as the heroes of the game, and I can understand the reasons why. I suppose how I would resolve this is that our characters, when interacting with another RP group, wouldn't talk about their more extensive activities. This is something we already do to make the story make sense... most NPCs don't treat you like you are some badass who just saved the world. Most don't even seem to know of your activities. So we resolve this through keeping our mission progress secret... we argue that were we to tell the truth of our activities it could lead to widespread panic or people would just panic. I think this is what the game wants for your character anyways.... as Lion says That all being said it isn't a flawless model, but what has resulted is a very closely knit band of adventurers, with a lot of complex reasons to travel with each other, and I have found very fulfulling.

I've always thought it'd be cool, for Dissidia to include a 'Design Your Own Character' option, using either the FFXI or FFXIV character creation types, and have that be the designated character from those games.

; ; I guess people just wanted a more isolated server. Well I hope the RP is good because otherwise we're not going to have much left. >.<

I dunno, I hope we don't throw this vote out as mentioned, or leave it all in the hands of one person to decide. This is arguably the thing that many people have joined the forums to participate in. If we make a bad choice of selecting Lindblum then we make a bad choice, but it's still the community deciding that as a whole, and tossing that out... I dunno, would be very off-putting. I ultimately don't think that the servers are going to be as overloaded as people are thinking anyways. I know no one has seriously talked about doing that but it has been mentioned, just voicing my concern.

I sorta see it sprinkled through the forums as well... it's like people seem shy. "We don't want to go to that server because of the kind of people that will attract." Umm... what does that mean? I really don't think (if they were doing villain names) that a server named Sephiroth would attract any bigger douchebags than any other server. I actually hope we pick a server with a decent population because honestly if it's just RP folks on here then we might not really be able to enjoy the actual game part of the game as much. That being said I RP in FFXI still to this day and I run around with my bazaar comment always advertising my RP linkshell. And sure, a couple of times I've run into a few endgame jerks who have thought to poke fun at me (and it gets really awkward for them when you show you aren't impressed with their fancy gear and say you don't care to spend the years of time it took for them to get it). And sometimes they just try to make fun of you anyways. Oh well, we got /blacklist. But the reason I keep that bazaar comment is because every once in a couple months someone checks me who is interested and we get a new member and that makes the little jokes worth it. Don't let people get on your case for RPing, its just some random yahoo on the internet taking pot shots at someone. And the truth is we aren't going to be able to avoid them even if we tried.

Personally I don't mind going to a place where there is going to be other communities. I like to do other things than just RP. But I think dreaming that we are going to get a server to ourselves without any other communities is unrealistic. No matter where we go there are going to be people that don't take to us well. Not the point I was trying to make. The major bone of contention it seems is people don't want the RPC to end up on a server that's already going to have several MAJOR entities there for the sole purpose that we want "Breathing Room" to accept new RP'ers. Moving to a server with an already high population and causing it to become locked for new people is counter-productive to the goals of the RP community. Which is why going for Figaro is a bad idea. Ah, okay, sorry for the confusion then. I voted Cornelia, big fan of how it all started.

Personally I don't mind going to a place where there is going to be other communities. I like to do other things than just RP. But I think dreaming that we are going to get a server to ourselves without any other communities is unrealistic. No matter where we go there are going to be people that don't take to us well.

I suppose the issue I have with this is while I agree with the intent behind this decision, and making life better for the casual player, I disagree with the method and I don't think that this will have the effect that they are desiring at all. The problem with FFXI was not the grind. Sure, the long, long exp parties that we all know about for those of us who played it will argue that it was not always fun. But the central issue behind a lot of FFXI's problems was that 90% of the game took place at level 75. Want to do some fun events? Dynamis starts at 65. Assault? I think it was like 50. Missions? Chains of Promathia is your friend here for the lower level people, or at least was, and nation missions leading up to 5.1. But the majority of the game's content was out of people's reach. That's what motivated the push and makes your first 75 so miserable in FFXI, there's nothing really to do until you get there. Starter nations barren, Jeuno pretty empty too and if you get to Whitegate you can really only watch shouts of what you might be able to do someday in the future. Yes, for newbies there was an event called Garrison, which I actually enjoy. Quick, easy, cheap to do and you can get some good stuff from it. But what SE failed to do is give upper level characters much incentive to participate in these events. It ends up being trash for them. And when the majority of the gaming population is in the upper level category that creates a problem. My LS does Garrisons to give the new people some fun stuff to do and you should see how pumped they get. They want to go out and grind out some new levels to do the tougher Garrisons. But say, for example, if SE offered tiered rewards for Garrisons, for example, if you do a 20 sync garrison and you are level 20, you get access to a potential item of a certain category, but if you are level 80, you get to choose from different, premier items. Heck, if Garrisons dropped Dynamis currency everyone would be doing them, and the lowbies would have something to do. But that's what I am worried about with this strategy. Limiting the time you can exp on a job does not mean that the lower levels will be more enjoyable. That's not going to make it the funner game. You need a lot of stuff to do on your way to the upper levels. If you give the upper levels a good reason to do these events with newbies, with good rewards, the exp grind won't matter. I do hope they do a lot better job with how they choose to manage their community. I think that SE's biggest failure with FFXI was drop rates and NM pops. It might sound weird but what I've seen is this: people generally are willing to help each other, especially for mutual gain. They don't mind taking a couple hours to hang with friends and camp some monster for the chance at some high level gear. But once you are 0/6 that seems less appealing. You don't want to really sit around and help your friend anymore because the time vs. reward just isn't turning out to be worth it, you are getting frustrated. So you bail, because you want to do other things. Your friend decides he has to solo this thing, and so on and so forth, it promotes a very, very "every man for himself" mentality. People don't mind a challenge, or a hard battle, so long as they know the rules and know that when they put their time into it and they accomplish the goal, they will be rewarded. In FFXI, that wasn't necessarily the case, and actually, it was more often that you were not rewarded despite having "beaten" the boss, or monster, or whatever. You won, fair and square, but SE's internal /random generator decided that you don't get your item today. And that isn't going to keep people playing. SE's argument is that unless they keep drop rates low you won't keep playing, but all I can say is, people are already playing another game (WOW) and they aren't maintaining subscriptions with that strategy. The other big problem was how they managed HNMs. 24 hour repops and they sit and monitor their server and what as several elite linkshells comprised of people with too much free time sit and catch every Fafnir, Behemoth, or whatever spawn. And SE just sat there and more or less encouraged this, even though there was the whole botting problem. How much more enjoyable would it have been if Fafnir was a force pop? Shout for a group in whitegate, put it together, go pop him, and get to fight the beast. It would've been fun, and manageable for all. I hope that they head into FFXIV with more of this mindset, but I have to say I'm not so hopeful. I love the FF lore that backs the game but they never did fix these problems with XI. And reading that their way of solving it is by putting an 8 hour exp cap to make things more friendly for the casual user? That won't help... if anything it will just make more of a disparity. Think of the PS3 users, who will start out behind and will *stay* behind...

It was arguably a horrible PR move and I can guarantee that he isn't thrilled that his twitter post was caught, translated, and posted up for the western audience to see. It is generally a bad call to go out and insult a good chunk of your user base. They will lose sales because of that. It was a dumb, dumb move and was very poorly worded (I speak japanese and its very rudely written). Especially since, when you read the article, it is an issue that the Japanese players have expressed confusion about, and have, in fact, defended us and our complaints by saying that SE brought this on themselves when they introduced a new system with no explanation. If they didn't think that people were going to sit and debate online about what this new thing is, it was very poorly planned. And yes, they are putting their sweat, blood, and tears into this. But it isn't something that they are doing out of the goodness of their heart. They are producing a product that we will pay for and subscribe to. And if we are going to pay money for this, our voice should be heard. If they ignore us, that's when we stop paying. That's why WoW won over FFXI in terms of population.

Retro FF villains for the win. Really just not a fan of Jecht, never really liked the FFX story. As cliche though, it may be I would even go with Sephy over Jecht... or even Shadowlord. But Garland or Kefka or Exdeath, yes please! And while it may only be a server name, it is what we are going to be looking at every time we log in, and we have the choice and ability to decide whether we like that or not. I understand the people who are on Jecht and RPing might like to stay there because the RPC is sorta established somewhat, but at the same time I don't think that the people who were lucky enough to get into the beta should be the ones who have picked the server for those of us without the beta, which would be the majority. Basically I'm just saying I don't think we should default to Jecht for that reason, since server selection should be a group thing. I think that there should be a poll up now for all the RPC to vote on up until the game's release, listing that current beta server names and polling all of us on which server we would like to join if they keep with the naming scheme, and this could stay up until a day before the CE's release in September. That way everyone has plenty of time to make their picks, with plenty of time, and the RPC could announce the winner that day before the game launches. And of course, we could have a backup plan if they names are different, like others are suggesting, first name after L or whatnot. That's just less ideal though since we don't get to pick our servers, but it is what it is. But if the names are possibly going to just remain the same anyways why not just run a poll? Seems like an easy solution to me.

Hope you enjoy! That concert actually was pretty near me too last December... unfortunately work stuff precluded me from going.

(apologizes if any of this has been said discussed, read through most of the first page and just posting my experience) I actually ultimately opted for a smaller HD monitor for my computer instead of my HDTV. I found that the monitor a much nicer range of picture and color range than my HDTV had. I was also happy with the new monitor since it would do 1080p whereas my TV was 720p. Perhaps the biggest issue I had was with overscan. My TV had very noticeable overscan. For those who don't know its where you screen is, I guess, displaying wider than your monitor's physical size. The overscan is also a hardware issue and the only way to fix it is to have considerable knowledge on what you are doing otherwise you can break the TV. I know nVidia has a tool in their drivers to help correct it, but I always found it to be a hassle, since my screen wouldn't ever be displaying in true 720p (since I effectively was telling it to crop pixels from the sides). Then for game resolutions that you set you always have to be careful since you are working with an unusual resolution and... well, I decided that I A. wanted a 1080p display anyways and B. didn't like the hassle of the TV. Plus I use this computer for a lot of actual work and whatnot and actually prefer a smaller 24 inch screen than that for the TV. It really depends on what you are going for and what is important to you. If you don't mind some setup and really want a huge screen for your gaming experience a HDTV is going to deliver that best. But again there will be some setup and some hassles (at least, in my case) that you will have to go through. I found that my monitor had a lot higher picture quality, which is more important to me than raw size, than my TV, plus it required virtually no setup, so it was a win for me there.

Hey, don't rain on our parade. I wouldn't argue that FFXI has a thriving or vibrant RP community but it is there for those who seek it. My group continues to grow in members and our numbers of events per week have started to go up as more people join and start to initiate activities. I do find the anti-vana'deil edge on this forum to be rather disheartening. Just because there are some RP groups in FFXI that have shut down doesn't mean that we all have or that we're struggling to get by... oh well, with comments like these bothering me so much I should really just stay away.