Havoc Snow

I don't recall them ever stating how long Early Access was going to be, just that Phase 4 was only going to be for a single week. The fact that P4 is an entirely new client and not just an update to the old client makes it seem unlikely they'll start P4 a day after it's announced (assuming that they'll hold off announcing it until the Live Letter).

Trading exists in FFXIV like it does in many other games. You can give another character gil, items, or equipment though you can only trade equipment that is not bound to your character. If the piece of equipment has the "Untradeable" tag at the top above its name (same area where it says whether it's Unique or not) then you can't trade or sell it on the market. I believe unique items are automatically untradeable so you can never trade the different sets you can get out of Dungeons... which is kind of unfortunate because they make for really cool RP outfits. As far as Courier vs Moogle goes, the major downside is going to be time I feel. If lets say I'm in Ul'dah, and a friend of mine is in Quarrymill and I want to send them a message. I can hire a courier to send it for me, but said Courier either needs to run all the way from Ul'dah to Quarrymill, or spend their own money to teleport there via Aetheryte. Of course the courier could charge a small fee to cover Aetheryte costs, but that'll only diminish the value of the service and how often it is used, after all if I wanted to pay the fee I'd just teleport there myself. So for this example we'll assume that the courier runs there. From Ul'dah to Quarrymill on Chocobo it's really not that long of a run, maybe 10 minutes at most, however that's ten minutes my friend either has to sit in Quarrymill waiting, or if he doesn't know he's supposed to be waiting (or decides he doesn't want to) the courier has to then track him down where ever he went off to. Maybe he went into a dungeon? Now the courier needs to wait for him to finish before delivering. When you compare this to Mog Mail, I merely talk to a Moogle, tell them what I want to send, and instantly it arrives anywhere in the world where there's a Mog Mail post. With the above example with me in Ul'dah and him in Quarrymill I send the letter and he walks over to the Moogle which is right in the center of town and receives it instantly. If he goes into a dungeon first the letter will be waiting for him when he gets out and no player has to waste their time or money to do it. In games like WoW I could see this being slightly more viable because mail isn't instant, and often times isn't free. The fee in WoW isn't a big deal, just 30 copper per attachment, but it takes an HOUR for mail to arrive. Simply put, Mog Mail is instant, you can send items, letters, or money through them safely, and there is a Moogle in every city, hamlet, and outpost in the game and they always seem to know which one you're at (which is a little creepy if you think about it), so ultimately Mog Mail will 9 times out of 10 probably beat out an RP courier service. As far as not trusting Moogles, I don't really understand this so I'd be kind of curious to hear the reasons behind certain characters not trusting them. They are considered Beastmen in Eorzea, but Beastman doesn't automatically mean badguy in the lore, it's just a term for a sentient bestial race that lives outside of the influence of the City-states. The Sylphs are an example of not all of them being evil (though some of them have been corrupt now so that's not as true as it was in 1.0). Other than the fact that they have a child-like nature and they tend to take advantage of the fact that almost no one can actually see them (as seen by them totally yanking the merchants booze in the Gridania opening). If you played 1.0 (or just looked up the openings for the original game) you, Yda, and Papalymo are saved by a band of Moogles in the Gridania opening (presumably by the same ones in the 2.0 opening) and the fact that they are very close with the Padjal shows they're good natured and benevolent. [video=youtube]http://youtu.be/GpftrjYCzpA How can you not trust a race whose King/Primal has a theme like this?!

Usually we see the next phase start the weekend after a live letter, so I'll have to agree with Freelance's time table for the most part, however the did say Beta 4 was going to be a week long test and that there'd be a few days for debugging between P4 and Early Access. So with that in mind my speculation is more along the lines of: August 12-19: Phase 4 beta August 20-22: Debug August 23-26: Early access August 27: Launch As stated before though, it's all just speculation until we get an official announcement which probably won't be until the 8th.

I just update her wiki page to include the inventions she has revealed in character. I wrote that page before doing any RP with her in the last phase of beta, so it's updated now with the ideas she put forth in play with other characters. Totally unrelated, but FFXIV needs an inventor/engineer type Disciple of the Hand class. That was always my favorite profession in WoW and no other game has really done it. I don't think the outlandish type stuff they make in WoW would be fitting, but the theme of making crazy inventions (or even Magiteck) would be awesome. We have fishing which is a DoL class that pretty much serves no purpose other than as a hobby, an inventor DoH class could serve the same roll, creating minions, or fun novelty items. Anyways, sorry for going off topic.

^This is really the only way I could see an idea like this really working. While the Moogles are awesome in that you can send packages and letters freely, there is a restriction that would make this idea prosper under certain circumstances, that being you can only use Mog Mail to message someone on your buddy list. This isn't always beneficial however because the person you need to contact might not be on your friends list, or hell you might not even know their name. Lets use Freelances example from earlier of the Blades of Nald'thall and the Knights of the Twelve. These two groups are in a way two sides of the same coin, but neither one of them would ever be seen associating with one another publicly under most circumstances, however lets say for example that the Blades uncover some piece of information that they feel the Knights of the Twelve might be more adequate at dealing with. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Blade who has this information has no idea which Knight to contact, and perhaps the information is very sensitive (the Moogles themselves in game admit to occasionally reading messages), so rather than risk sending a Mog Mail, even if they could, they could hire a courier under the direction of delivering a message to the leader of the Knights of the Twelve and no one else, or something along those lines. This allows for vague recipients with specific orders, something you can't achieve using the ingame mail service. I for one would probably use this service a lot in order to contact individuals anonymously and what not.

-7/28: Updated application criteria

I'm gonna have to edit the app criteria because it is kind of poorly worded. The whole requesting you progress was because in the past we've had people who would join and then just kind of sit at level 1 - 10 and never really do anything. While I have no problem with people pacing themselves as they level and enjoying RP as much as they enjoy playing the game, I'd rather have members who are still able to contribute to the group as a whole, especially with so many things that they've talked about already that require cooperation of the whole FC, the most notable being Housing. That or having people make alts, ask to have the alt invited, and then never playing said alt. I'm kind of OCD so having all these characters in a group that say like "Last online 6 months ago" always kind of bothered me. I know a lot of guilds do it to boost their numbers, but I'd have have dedicated and active members than a hundred members with 90% of them being level 1.

One thing I always keep in mind is that I've already encountered a lot of people who are new to the community, and even quite a few who were new to RP as well, so for people to have an elitist attitude where RP should be insular and invitation only it creates a bad impression of us as a whole. I mean how would you feel if I walked into the middle of the Adventurer's Guild while you were sitting and having a chat and just flew into a fit of rage and flipped a table, and then if you tried to react to that I told you it was a private RP and you couldn't react to it? I understand this is a pretty extreme example, but it's kind of how I feel when I come across people roleplaying out in the open who act like no one else around them exists and they're off in their own little world that's invite only. If your character spouts some obscenity about Miqo'te am I supposed to ask permission to tell your character off for being a bigot? Sure, that might be polite, bu it shouldn't be expected. It doesn't flow properly in my opinion and as I said in one of my previous posts in this thread people will feel deterred from RPing with people they don't know if they're expected to ask for permission. While not all, many Roleplayers tend to be introverted when it comes to interacting with people they don't know, especially OOC. Being able to simply slide into a scene without ever breaking character allows most people to stay in a comfort zone that makes it easier to get involved even if you don't know the people you're joining.

I may pick this up in some small fashion. One of the ideas I was considering for the Blades' front company was a shipping company, imports and exports around Eorzea especially with Ul'dah being the center of commerce and smack in the middle of Gridania and Limsa Lominsa. If I end up going this route, maybe I'll have a small subsidiary division that handles courier services... after all what better way to collect intelligence is there than to have people just give it to you. :tonberry:

Well linkpearls as I understand (if it's anything like in FFXI) are physical objects that would theoretically have some kind of distinguishable markings on them or something (otherwise how could you tell them all apart). So with that in mind if this were done through an LS you wouldn't need to have a code word or anything like that (since code words are easy to obtain if you know how, or have the money to bribe/extort). Bearing a linkpearl from a reputable courier service would be enough in most cases, sort of like a badge or an ID card that says "this guy is trustworthy" especially since the people who control the Linkshell can create and destroy Linkpearls, which means if one were lost or stolen it could be destroyed and a new one created. That was how I understood the way they worked anyways, correct me if I'm wrong. On a side note, aren't Moogles technically the canon courier service in the game via Mog Mail? I mean you can send letters, packages, and gil through them. The only downside is you can't use them to contact people you don't know, so I guess this could be where a freelance courier service would come in handy.

Not at all, if you were interested in joining us our members get priority positions in raids or PvP groups before we go with PUGs or the Duty Finder, but no one is required to join them. All it means is that some of us are interested in endgame content so if there are other people who are looking for a LS/FC where they can RP and do that sort of thing we will accommodate them. If you'd like to join purely for the RP you're more than welcome to, and if you decide later on you'd like to try getting into endgame you're also welcome to that.

Finally got an updated picture of myself, just some random selfie I took when it was nice out.

So I was considering some ideas for uniform and was looking through the files on XIVDB trying to decide what would work well while being relatively accessible early in the game. So far I think I've compiled a decent enough list of what would probably work, however it might be difficult to know for certain since I'm basing my ideas on thumbnails and I'll need to actually see the sets in game before making any final decision, buuut the idea I'm leaning towards would be as follows. Plate: Iron Cuirass, Iron Gauntlets, Padded Cotton Trousers, Iron Sabatons Leather: Goatskin Jacket, Goatskin Armguards, Goatskin Brais, Goatskin Leggings Cloth: Cotton Cowl, Cotton Halfgloves, Cotton Tights, Hard Leather Boots All classes would wear something like an Ash Mask to cover their faces when meeting non-members under their true identity. I tried to pick the best looking gear (as far as I could remember from beta) for each class of gear, though I may change my mind come phase 4 when I can play around with it a bit more. The gear selection also means that the uniforms require you be level 15 to 20 to wear, but that's another reason while I'll need to wait to see what I can do come launch, because there may be much easier options.

Ultimately it's best to just practice discretion, if people are rping out in the open in a well populated area then chances are they are doing so as an open invitation for anyone to join, while in some cases the subject matter might or the specific circumstances (see: location, number of people, etc) might make it apparent that what is going on is intended to be private. I definitely advocate open rp, a lively world, and a strong community above anything else! As far as griefers go, during beta I haven't really encountered any in game so far but I do need to issue a warning to those who can't access the beta forums. Prior to me joining RPC, this was back in Phase 2, I remember searching the beta forums looking for threads to see what server the majority of the RP community was going to be on come launch and if there was already a strong community somewhere (coming from TERA I was a part of the Council of Seven community for a while). Upon searching I found a LOT of hate towards Roleplayers, a surprising amount of it to be honest. There were a lot of threads that go so bad they ended up locked after only a few pages because they had become so inflammatory. A lot of this had to do with people wanting us to stay off their server, and primarily it involved servers like Hyperion and Behemoth though I saw it on a few others. Ironically a lot of these people viewed US as griefers. Sorry for going off topic with that, but since the question was asked about griefers I felt that cautionary tale needed to be told. Though then again a group of 10 or 12 people on the beta forums does not make up the majority of the FF Community.

My character and LS/FC are a part of the darker side of Ul'dah's underworld, however for the opposite reasons of many of the people in this thread. They're vigilantes and antiheroes that work outside of the law to get things done, so it could be assumed that many would view them as criminals just as much. In either case I look forward to opposing you all and taking down your criminal organizations in the near future!

I'm all for folk walking up and entering a scene at will, but characterizing asking for permission as creepy is a bit disingenuous. This isn't real life; this is roleplay. I think I misspoke, what I was referring to was immersion and I don't think I clarified that. Let me spin a tale here for a moment as an example. Let us say that my character has an encyclopedic knowledge of the southern deserts of Thanalan, and he's just sitting around bored in the Adventurer's Guild waiting for something to do. In comes these two other adventurers talking about an expedition into the southern deserts, but perhaps they're bickering about some specific landmark or some such. My character overhears this, and his natural reaction would be to chime in and offer his expertise. Now either the two accept his offer of help, they decline it, or they outright ignore him but in either case I can roll with that and fluidly continue to RP. If they accept, and adventure starts and now the group has a guide! If they decline I politely nod my head and go about my business. If they ignore me then I can either pretend they didn't hear me, or perhaps react as if they just gave me the cold shoulder and make some remark before going on about my day. This is fluid, immersed roleplay that plays out without any OOC direction or narration. It just happens as the events unfold naturally. Now under the same example, lets say before engaging the two I whisper one or both of them to ask if it'd be alright for me to join them, and we'll say I get any of the three above responses in either case. Even if they respond positively and I get to join them, the problem I have is that I still had to pause, step outside of my character and then address them as the player before joining in. This is what I meant by whispering in someones ear for permission to join their conversation. Imagine if you had to watch movies unedited where before every scene the director stopped the movie to tell the actors what to do next. There's no way you could get involved in the movie if he keeps breaking the immersion, and for me that's what needing permission to RP is like. Don't get me wrong, if I see a small group of people somewhere secluded I'm not about to come running up to them with my pants on my head shouting "HAI GUIZ WACHA DOOING?!" I understand being courteous and what not, but my character is the type of guy that likes to sit around in popular places and listen in on conversations, so if he happened by a small group of people in an isolated area, he's more likely to sit a spell and have a listen in case something interesting is going down and if I see people posting in /say I feel it's only polite that I do the same to at least make it known that I'm there listening IC. If no one is saying anything in /say, I'll assume it's private and be on my way.

There's a saying that I think would apply here: It's better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I think this applies almost doubly for Roleplayers in this type of environment. If you happen upon two people in a tavern having a conversation it's far easier to try to engage them and be ignored than it is to ask to join and potentially be ignored. The fear or rejection tends to be stronger than the desire to engage in most cases. Maybe I happen upon your RP and see a perfect opening to get involved myself, so I send you a /tell to ask permission to join and you guys post two or three more times before responding, even if it was favorably chances are that window of opportunity I had has come and gone when you continued your scene. Regardless however, many people are hesitant for one reason or another about engaging in RP with people they don't know, and it adds an extra level of hesitation when you're expected to ask for permission prior to joining. If you're going to RP in public you should just do so operating under the impression you're sending an invitation to anyone around to join you, otherwise you need to be doing your private RP in private. Not to mention how much requiring permission breaks immersion. Have you ever sat in a cafe or something and overheard a conversation, and then walked up to one of the people involved and whispered in their ear "Hey do you mind if I join your conversation?" I'm going to guess the answer to that is no. That would be incredibly creepy.

I think I'm going to end up parroting a lot of what's already been said in my own words, but personally I feel that if you start an RP in public you should have the guts to maintain it in public. We have a blacklist for a reason, if you have a griefer come up and start bothering you then just blacklist them so you can't hear them anymore. If they continue to pest you, you can easily report them since we'll have live GM support, or merely walk away. By taking RP into /tell or /party all this does is send a message to griefers that they can push us around and manipulate us. If you stand your ground and take affirmative action against them, it shows them that we're a strong community willing to defend what we enjoy as much as anyone else. One of the things I have absolutely LOATHED in my past experiences with MMO was that most RP was contained exclusively within /guild, /tell, or /party and unfortunately that just made the world feel dead to me. When I come to an RP server I have this hope that it'll feel lively, that I'll walk down a busy street and see all kinds of conversations, or people going about doing something in emotes. Anything to make a city feel like a city, instead of people being tucked away in dark corners and the city streets being silent. Nothing is more disappointing than coming across a large group of people who obviously look like roleplayers, only to find out they're all sitting around silently because their RP is guild exclusive and taking place in /guild. I can understand that sometimes there's a necessity for it, perhaps you're doing some kind of event, or personal RP that might be intended to be isolated (similar to an instanced quest), and in these cases I can't complain, but if you're sitting in a tavern drinking and having a conversation I see no reason why it should be done in anything other than /say unless the conversation is ICly being kept private, such as two folks whispering to each other in a corner or something. Anyways, that's just my opinion.

Welcome to RPC, hope you enjoy your stay! Like Rock said, if you have any questions never hesitate to ask.

I've noticed.. Not sure whyfor that is. Ah well. I'll shoot you a message un momento, and we'll see what we can see. ^.^ You'd think with 11 replies already there'd be more than just us talking in here! Maybe people feel that because the discussion is LS specific it's not an open conversation? That's not the case if that's what people think! I encourage everyone to comment and give suggestions, I'm looking for input and feedback from anyone who will give it.

If you are not already registered for beta (meaning you didn't already sign up for it) then you will need to do so, if you don't get a key before they announce the start date I would advice trying to register again as they may create a new form specifically for Phase 4 signups. If you are already enrolled in beta from Phase 3 or earlier then you are already enrolled in beta for Phase 4 and do not need to do anything. When they announce Phase 4 there will be a new launcher you'll need to download (presumably the commercial one they'll use for launch day), other than that it's beta as normal.

You're more than welcome to join! I was just waiting to see if you were going to go with us or Misericorde. So far you've been the only person to give me any feedback anyways!

That's pretty much the point of this thread, to discuss ideas I have and see if they're doable, dumb, or great ideas. I'm trying to be ambitious with this group without biting off more than I can chew, and so far I've had a lot of support from interested parties and current members hammering out all the ideas and what not. Also, let me reiterate something. No one will ever KNOWINGLY deal directly with the Blades. You may end up talking to Ashren himself out on the street while trying to enlist their help or find out more information about the order, but the point is that you'll never actually know the guy you just spoke to a moment ago was a member of the order. Even once they decide to take a job and show up in person, I think they'd be very careful never to reveal their identities to their clients. Ashen is a man of many hats and many masks, you might spend a day asking around the market ward about the Blades only to happen upon a stall run by a friendly merchant who turns out to be very helpful and has exactly what you're looking for, even if he might be a tad cryptic and what not. Then later on you might return to said stall trying to get a little more information or something only to find the stall isn't there any longer and no one recalls there ever being a stall there to begin with. Little things like that, I feel, will make for very fun RP. So in short, when I say you'll never directly deal with the Blades I don't mean members of the FC, but that you'll never know whether someone you talked to was a member, or just someone who knew a thing or two about a thing or two. I also think it'd be much cooler than having their existence be some kind of rumor that people whisper about, instead perhaps they pay off the local merchants and stuff the perpetrate the belief that they're just an urban legend or bandit superstition. For example if someone goes looking around for them they met get told something like the Blades are just some Syndicate story made up to keep merchants paying their taxes, or something similar to that. If their existence was just uttered in whispers, that could eventually get out and their existence could become widely known. If instead people acknowledge the rumors but foster the idea that they're false, mislead people into thinking it's nothing but stories then no matter how much someone talks about them their existence is still something of a secret.

You make a very valid point, and of course with that scenario as far as the guy looking for help knows someone in the tavern, or standing on the street overheard him asking around about the group for help, it may not have even been anyone he spoke to directly. That's kind of the reason for keeping the LS and FC as separate entities, they're both under the same organization but the public never deals directly with the Blades, they always have to deal with some kind of go between which would be represented by the LS.

This was actually exactly what I had in mind for recruit, which was why I wanted to create a LS and FC that were linked, but separate entities. You'd first join the LS as a staffer basically, for whatever business we decide on, and after working there for so long you'd be black bagged or something, taken out into the desert, and then interrogated. If you passed the test, you'd be invited into the order. I hadn't actually considered a tavern though, so that's a definite possibility, especially after they introduce FC housing we could always try to set it up as some kind of tavern and leave it open to the public. One of the key things is anonymity, so I had also intended to utilize some kind of guild specific garments, even if it was something as simple as like a hempen cowl and your racial gear (something that can be worn by ever class and is easy to obtain even at early levels). One of the other ideas I had too was colorizing ranks, for example even though everyone is shrouded with masks or hoods you can tell rank by someone having a blue robe, or a red robe, etc. Initiates would have an undyed robe, while an officer might have a red or black robe, something like that. One of the reasons behind a hempen cowl (beyond how easy it was to get) was that I felt it would humble people. You might be a level 50 Paladin who runs around in shiny white and gold armor outside of the order, but when you are with your brothers and sisters everyone is equal. P.S. I actually like the idea of having different names with matching abbreviations, that's kind of cool though it might be difficult to do that with BoN. I personally love the idea of a more... subtle uniform. Loc, on the other hand, did not. TMC's only requirement was that it be dark-colored, to be better suited for hiding at night and such. Other then that, you could pretty much wear whatever you wanted. It also had to be different from what you wore, day to day. In some cases, one such was a woman with fiery red hair, a little extra would be needed to cover up the more 'distinguishable' features. If you could be identified by it, it had to be covered. But, TMC wasn't militaristic so much as it was banditaristic. I made that word up. With that in mind, BoN sounds much more organized and militarized, so ranking uniforms may very well work. Though, you might also consider uniforms based on classes, too. Or maybe class-archetypes. Ranged wears certain type of uniform, casters wear a certain type, melee wears a certain type.. You could get infinitely detailed with it, or you could just have color requirements - IE, each rnak has a color scheme to adhere to - and let them wear what they want. Certain characters may have clothing preferences better suited to their abilities, and such. I'm still gonna stand behind the market place idea as far as the front goes, but that's mainly because I detest tavern RP. It bores me to death. But! The tavern idea isn't bad.. I mean, it worked and it worked well. TMC actually used a tavern in GW2 from day 1. They RPed there often enough, and well enough, that it was publicly known we owned the tavern.. I can't say if it still works like that. GW2's community went to the crapper. Anywho, I digress. Well us being based out of Ul'dah, the only taverns I can think of was one in Horizon (which wasn't really that taverny...), the Winding Sands or whatever it was called in Vesper Bay where the Scions are based out of (which makes it kind of off limits), and the Adventurer's Guild (which would also be off limits). The only way I could see a tavern working best would be with a FC house designed like a tavern. As far as Tavern RP goes, I'm kind of with you, however I can't deny that tavern rp draws the most people in. One of the things I'm considering is that I really want to aim for the group to work with other FCs and LSs. For example, lets say a LS is planning some kind of event but maybe they need some muscle, or maybe they need some items crafted. Maybe one member heard a rumor about a group that could be contacted at a nearby market/tavern/whatever so they show up asking around with no luck, then as they're about to leave a shadowy figure calls them over into a nearby alley where they'd be questioned and it would be ascertained whether or not their request was legitimate, or worthy. If it was deemed worth the attention of the Blades, we'd then make some kind of contract with the other LS where the terms of our involvement is agreed upon, and during whatever event they're playing we'd show up and help in whatever way they needed. On the flip side of this, lets say there is a LS planning something devious and sinister that might not jive well with our plans or ideals, we can't very well just sit by and allow this as dark arbiters of the peace and so we'd OOCly contact the other LS and try to setup some kind of event where the two of us could cross blades in some way, perhaps to try and thwart their schemes, or at the very least divert them a little. One of the things I've always hated in MMOs was that guild RP always felt so isolated and uninvolved in the community as a whole, their stories were always very self contained and I want to break away from that and try to make it so that our group has a storyline, its own meta plot, but outsiders are welcome to take part in it, get involved, and likewise I want to open doors for us to get involved in the plots and stories of other groups as well. Edit: As far as uniform goes, I'm still considering that and putting a lot of thought into it, so a uniform probably won't be decided on until sometime after launch. While I could just let people wear whatever they wanted so long as they dyed it a particular color to match their rank, I want a certain level of uniformity, so I think what I'd probably do is have three sets of gear required to be worn by every member during meetings and what not, one plate, one leather, and one cloth set of uniforms. Then from there the color of your uniform would determine your rank, and perhaps allow a set number of "mods" to the uniform based on rank, like allowing you to replace the gloves or boots with something of your choice, or replace the chest/head with something that resembles the original, since I've noticed there are a few different armor types that resemble lower level gear but are more stylized. This way there is a uniform, but it encourages participation and progress so you can gain rank and customize your "guild look" a bit more. One of the things I definitely want is, in the event we take part in some kind of event run by another LS/FC, I want us to show up like a well oiled machine and people to be able to recognize the Blades of Nald'thal the moment they show up.