Havoc Snow

The Blades of Nald'thal aren't necessarily villains either, more like... Bad Guy Good Samaritans. I think people outside their organization might view them as villains however, since they don't tend to discriminate who they doll out their particular brand of justice to.

I actually don't think it would change anything for those who are completely adamant about staying on Gilgamesh. If they were to add an official designation to an already pre-existing server Balmung makes the most sense, because it allows any player new or old to make a character on it, while also acknowledging an already existing (and large) community of roleplayers on it. I think it would actually be worse if they created an entirely new server for RP because now people from Balmung and Gilgamesh (and any other server) would need to move, instead of one one community needing to make the decision whether to integrate or stay where they are. Sure they could make Gilgamesh the official server once all servers are available for world transfer regardless of character type, but I don't see that happening. I really hate to say this, but I'll be perfectly blunt for the sake of being clear. Gilgamesh doesn't have the stability, size, or community Balmung has, and probably never will. I'm not saying this to be mean or anything, it's just that Balmung had a headstart, they already had a base to start with from all the 1.0 players who are returning, and prior to Gilgamesh being named the RPC Server 2 many new players had already resolved to joining it. In addition, Rock and a number of other people have already stated that it's easier to just jump right into RP from day 1 on Balmung, which means that Gilgamesh is only going to see growth in terms of people who are really adamant about not playing on a Legacy server, while Balmung will continue to see growth from anyone who doesn't care about the schism. I'm deviating from my point however. Right now Gilgamesh is brand new, fresh start, filled with trail blazers who get to be the server firsts or what have you. A few months from now they'll be Balmung Lite because all the server firsts will be taken up, all the tropes and cliches and what not will have happened, and they'll be existing in exactly the same state as Balmung. It'll just be a single community separated by a wall.

While I agree with some of your points, I feel you're being too absolute. Too black and white if you will. There needs to be a distinction made here between something being unlawful, and something being evil. Theft is not evil, though it could be argued that greed is. If you're an orphaned child who lives on the streets with your younger sibling, you have no means to work or survive outside of pinching a loaf of bread every few days or something like that, does that make you a vile and insidious criminal? I don't think so. I think your interpretation of a hero also falls a bit too far into "Superman Syndrome," in other words the type of character that cannot and will not do bad things under any circumstance. In the real world we view murder as evil, right? And yet we revere soldiers who go over seas to kill for their country as heroes. Even in FFXIV people who go out and fight with (and kill) Garlemald soldiers are viewed as heroes. Yet murder is still evil, right? It's all a matter of perspective.

I'm not sure there is a such thing as a "noble thief" unless you are INCREDIBLY thorough. The idea of a noble thief falls mainly on the archetype created by Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. In the case of Robin Hood though he stole primarily from the king, though in some cases he also robbed wealthy merchants and what not with no real idea of who they were. Let's say for example we have a noble thief and a rich merchant prince. The noble thief robs the merchant prince to give back to the people, so we sympathize with the cause of the thief because we exalt his deeds, but more often than not it's because we're given very little information about the person he's robbing. In this example, what if that merchant prince started out as a street rat, he came up with a good idea and managed to elevate himself above his status (something Ul'dah is known for), or perhaps he's a member of a family that have worked incredibly hard and their wealth is well deserved. Maybe he has a large family and even though he has riches he also works himself to the bone to support said family and give them happiness. These are also very noble qualities, and the noble thief only perpetrates that just because he has something everyone else should have it too. In that example you're only perpetrating the idea that the poor don't need to work or make themselves of use to their society because you'll just rob the people who do work and prove themselves to their community and give it to everyone else. Noble thief or not, that just makes you and everyone you support freeloaders in my opinion.

These only go so far however, and in some ways are actually kind of disheartening. Let's say you're on Balmung and I'm on Gilgamesh. You create an open RP thread for anyone to join, this lasts over the span of weeks, or months, the two of us become really good friends throughout that time, but in game we have a substantial amount of investment in our servers, or merely our characters on those servers, so merely hopping from one to the other is not really a viable option. Sure we can create alts, but over the past few months we've been roleplaying as the characters we have been currently playing, this means that any relationships or bonds that form in a forum RP never transcend the forum RP, we'll never meet in game, never play together, never be a part of the same circles. Several months down the road Gilgamesh' status as the Non-Legacy Server will become irrelevant because Legacy and Non-Legacy players will be on equal footing, at that point it's just RPC Server 1 and RPC Server 2. This is why I feel that the community as a whole, not just RPC, could greatly benefit from a single dedicated server (and the opportunity to freely transfer to that server) once the whole Legacy debate is no longer relevant. This is not to say that Gilgamesh will ever become irrelevant as a home for RP if we don't gain an official server from SE, just that right now their main selling point is "we're new." Once the majority of the RPers on that server reach level 50, and the LS and FC all become well established as parts of the community, they lose that claim and they're no different from Balmung, and that could happen in only a few months, let alone in six months. Edit: Ultimately though, I still think we will get a dedicated server, I just think that SE is seeing the division in their community between Legacy and Non-Legacy, and in the long run this is only a temporary thing. If they created an entirely new server (as opposed to adding a designation to an existing server) they would need to determine whether Legacy characters could transfer to it, or to treat it like all the new 2.0 servers. In the event Legacy players could transfer to it, all non-Legacy players would view it as just another Legacy server and stay away from it, if they restricted it to new players only all the Legacy players would opt to stay on their own server rather than roll new. The best solution for this would be to wait until there's less of a gap between new and old players, then either create a new server or designate an old server as RP, allow for server transfers temporarily, and then allow the players to decide whether they want to join the new server or stay where they are. However with that said, the smaller gap between the two sides of the fence would make it much easier for the two sides to integrate together.

Well even if we did get an official RP server designation, I imagine there would still be micro communities on other servers outside of that one. Either people who weren't already RPers who got interested in it and formed LS/FC on their current server, people who were on other servers and didn't want to move to another server, or any number of other reasons. Regardless of that however I know that currently there are at least four servers where RP happens in any noteworthy amount, however I feel that the RP community as a whole, not just us here at RPC, could greatly benefit from a unified community where all of the different groups from all the different servers were all in one place together. Speaking from a personal point of view there are a lot of times when I'm sad to see people who are on Gilgamesh, not because I want everyone to join Balmung, but because there are so many great roleplayers in this community and I know a lot of them I'll never get to meet in game and experience RP with them, simply because of the rift in servers. Now if you imagine that it's not just Gilgamesh, but there could be other smaller communities out there as well filled with wonderful RPers we'll never even meet, even on the RPC, but that we could all be brought together if we had an official server. Or at least most of us would be brought together.

Dem polygons! also welcome to the community!

If SE did give us an official RP Server it probably won't be for at least six months after launch, since this was around the time he stated they would open all servers to all characters, including allowing Legacy characters to transfer to any server they wanted. At that point there would no longer be such a thing as a Legacy or Non-Legacy server, so they could easily designate any server they wanted as the RP Server. As a curiosity however, and I hope this doesn't spark an argument but a peaceful debate, since Yoshida has shown he does pay attention to fansites in the community, what if he decided to declare Balmung the official RP server? Would the members from Gilgamesh come to Balmung, or would they still decide to stay on their own server?

Hey! Listen!!

Yes, Balmung all the way! I'll definitely have my eyes on you. And thus Ashran becomes one of the few, one of the proud... one of the people actually addressed as "Sir" This can only spell disaster for his Blades. "She calls me sir, why don't the rest of you call me sir?!"

We already got to see the new Egis, so now it's time for the new Fairies! Scholars rejoice, here is a look at your AF gear and both of your pets. So there you have it folks, Fairies!

Yes, Balmung all the way! I'll definitely have my eyes on you.

As a minor addendum to this, you also don't necessarily need to be "bad" to be a vigilante either.

I'll go ahead and post here Ashren before the Calamity was a researcher for the Blades of Nald'thal, his primary studies were things like the many different applications of Aether and the crystallization process from Aether into Aetherite, eventually his studies lead him into some much more darker studies such as performing alchemical tests on crminals to alter memories or cause intense hallucinations, as well as researching the Void (which had some dire consequences for him). In addition, Ashren ran the entire research team fro the Blades and often dealt with Freelance researchers by funding their own studies (often anonymously) from the coffers of the organization, in exchange for having access to said research and the fruits of those labors. If anyone is interested in playing one of Ashren's former test subjects, or any researcher who used to work with him on his myriad of studies (I've already actually met with someone who was interested in this) then let me know. In addition, the Blades will need work for us to thrive in the way I would like, so if anyone ever has need of morally gray, slightly nefarious vigilantes let us know!

Why not make an alt? >:3

Hahahaha, awesome. Thank you! :moogle:

Wait... John Frobisher from Torchwood was actually the Doctor all along?

I said it before, I'll say it again. This art is amazing.

I believe it was the intent of the lore team that Nym was the settings version of Atlantis.

I guess maybe that explains why every race from every part of the world speaks English, or... whatever the language is supposed to be, except the Beastmen. Reading what little I could find it just made the Allagan seem like some kind of weird alien race that was hyper technological (I mean they trapped Bahamut in a manmade moon after all). It never says specifically however whether they were their own race, or just an empire made of all races, or maybe both (the Allagan as the ruling body and everyone else beneath them). Was just curious if it was ever said anywhere who or what the Allagan really were beyond a super technologically advanced empire that used to exist.

Based on racial statistics it suggests that the Seekers are more physical inclined while the Keepers are slightly more inclined towards mental attributes. There really isn't a huge difference in the two Clans but Keepers have a higher Mind (thus a greater capacity for channeling Aether) and I believe they have a higher Intelligence.

I have to say for this being a quick sketch this is fantastic, probably more than I could ever do even if I sat down for hours.

Ashren is of the scholarly mind himself, especially for a Miqo'te. He was raised in and around the Temple of Thal, he's a member of the Arrzaneth Ossuary (as a Thaumaturge), so he's everything you would expect from the stories one hears of that place, including but not limited to something of a mad scientist tinkering in the arts of alchemy, he's rumored to own a reproduction of the Necrologos that may or may not contain a powerful Voidsent inside of it... if one were to believe rumors. He's deeply interested in the study of Aether, though his primary focus is that of internal Aether, how it flows through the body and can produce incredible affects, and as of late he's taken an interest in the way this can even be used to create words into powerful affects (via Arcanist). His adopted father was a Thaumaturge as well, though before that he was a Lancer and because of this Ashren was sort of forced to endure of life of both physical and mental hardships and rigorous training and studies. I sort of use this as a mechanic to explain in some small way his ability to sort of stand out above the normal characters (NPCs primarily) while attempting to not make him into a gary stue. All this being said I think your character and mind would find each other interesting, so if you find yourself on Balmung I look forward to studying your brain... I mean meeting you.

Quick lore question. So I know there is not a huge amount of lore regarding the ancient Allagan Empire, but I was curious if we knew enough about them to tell if the Allagan Empire was made up of currently known races, or were the Allagan a race all their own?

I could be wrong but I kind of remember seeing a Miqo'te in the Arcanist Guild where you can see them... I assume training their Carbuncles. Besides, while it's likely to say that the majority of Miqo'te are not inclined to higher intellectual pursuits, if we as players can break the mold of the norm there is nothing that says that generations before us were not capable of it as well. Personally I think it could be really cool to see characters that might fit the naming conventions but don't fall into the societal norms for their race. I know. I just like to see reasons for not following x convention. Which most people are more than likely to have! To be honest I only speak somewhat defensively because at times I kind of feel a bit like a turd for using the orphan trope as an excuse to play a Miqo'te like an Elezen.